The SUPER Coaching Model

A Coaching Model By Louise Yin Luo, Life & Career Coaching, UNITED KINGDOM

The SUPER – Achieve Your Own Success

How did you decide which degree to study at university? What helped you make that decision? What about your career path? What helped you make that decision? The list goes on to include those many other important decisions in life. What helped you make that decision you must make each time?

In my case, I wanted to study medicine at university initially, as it was what my grandma said I could be good at. She wanted to become a doctor herself but did not have a chance in her time of war. She was very keen for me to become the first doctor in the family, given my academic excellence. My Dad told me to aim for International Finance instead, as that was rated as the most popular in his time. I realized I had to make a very important life decision without knowing anything about my unique personality and strengths.

The first time I was exposed to coaching was when I was so lucky to be nominated for a Global Talent program at work and assigned a corporate coach to support me through my career development. That was after I completed all my advanced studies in university, both my bachelor’s degree and master’s degree. I have already worked for more than 5 years in the banking sector in a specific chosen field. This means if I were to find out that my career path wasn’t a good match at this point or even later for most people, it would take so much time and effort to reset and change lanes.

We often hear people are unhappy with their jobs or people who later pursue MBA hoping to move to another industry or field. What if we can bring coaching to people much earlier in their lives, especially when they are deciding on what to study in university, and what career path to set for themselves during an internship, graduate program, and first permeant job?

If we have the awareness of our unique personality and strengths, combined with our purpose in a much earlier stage, would this help us to be the best we can be?

The SUPER Model

Success

What is success? Success is defined as “the achieving of the results that were wanted or hoped for; or something that achieves good results.”Success means different things to everyone. It can be as big as visiting the moon or as little as paying yourself for a good holiday. First, we want to understand what success our client is aiming to achieve.

Examples of coaching questions:

• What is the success that you are setting for yourself?
• What would success look like?
• How does success feel for you?
• What makes this success important/meaningful to you?
• What do you need to work on to achieve this success?

Unique ‘U’ (You)

Everyone is unique. I am unique. You are unique. What defines who we are? We are aware of the different external factors that make each of us unique, such as country or origin, language, race, culture, and religion, but more importantly, we want to focus on the internal aspects of who we are.

We can use DISC Profile assessment to help our clients understand their unique personalities. Our natural preference would help to determine what we like best and may do best. Clifton Strengths is another useful assessment to help our clients pinpoint more precisely their top 5 strengths. This would help them to gain confidence in embracing their Unique-U and make an informed choice with the right awareness of what they like/prefer naturally and what they can do best, more easily. This would help them to be at their best!

Examples of coaching questions:

• What are you most proud of yourself?
• What are your unique strengths?
• What is special about you?
• What helps you to stand out?
• What do you enjoy doing the most?

Purpose

Life purpose is defined as having set goals and a direction for one’s life (Hill et al., 2010). One study suggests that there are four different types of purpose (Hill et al., 2010). These types are:

1. Prosocial – Defined as a propensity to help others and influence the societal structure.
2. Creative – Defined as artistic goals and a propensity for originality.
3. Financial – Defined as goals of financial well-being and administrative success.
4. Personal recognition – Defined as one’s desire for recognition and respect from colleagues.

What is our client’s purpose in life?

Examples of coaching questions:

• What makes you do what you do?
• What truly motivates you?
• What would it mean to you and others?
• What impact would you make on the world?

Experiment (an action)

Let’s be playful and experiment with something new and even if we have never tried it or done it before. This may include taking up an adventure, learning a new skill, moving to a new business organization, taking up a new leadership position, becoming an entrepreneur, becoming a new parent, and relocating to a new country.

Examples of coaching questions:

• What can help you move forward?
• What is a new activity you would like to try out/experiment with?
• How can this experiment benefit you?

Rewards

Rewarding ourselves is important as it supports active self-reinforcement.

Noted psychologist B.F. Skinner, the father of operant conditioning and the first person to apply theories of instrumental learning to humans found that learning and behaviour are strengthened and modified by reinforcement paradigms. Self-reinforcement is an example of a self-regulatory process in which individuals reward themselves if their behaviour matches self-prescribed standards of performance. And if a favourable event (tangible reinforcer) is associated with a behaviour, that behaviour will be strengthened and more likely to occur in the future.

Examples of coaching questions:

• When you reach your success milestone, how would you like to reward yourself?
• How would you reward others who supported you through this journey (gratitude)?

In conclusion, this SUPER model aims to help you achieve your own success, leveraging on your unique-U personality and strengths so that you can be the best you can be, much more quickly and easily!

References

Tchiki Davis, MA, Ph.D., Life Purpose: What is it and how to find it. https://www.berkeleywellbeing.com/life-purpose.html
Jennifer Guttman Psy.D., Reaping the Rewards of Active Self-Reinforcement https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/sustainable-life-satisfaction/201910/reaping-the-rewards-active-self-reinforcement
Cambridge Dictionary, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/success