Overwhelm vs. Meaningful Steps

A Coaching Power Tool By Emilie Gagnon, Life Coach, FRANCE

How to Deal With Overwhelm vs. Meaningful Steps

Climate coaching is an emerging field both intriguing and confusing for most people, and as such, it has remained until now a rather niche coaching practice. It has emerged in recent years as consciousness of climate change and its consequences rose in the population. Its purpose is to support individuals and organizations (though here I’ll focus on individuals) in their transformational journey toward a more conscious and sustainable way of life, as well as to help cope with the emotions climate change may generate such as anxiety, sadness, fear, or anger.

The main challenge of this transformational journey is finding a sense of agency to concretely act in the face of a demoralizing prospect – especially when the change is perceived as a cost to self (changing habits, renouncing a certain way of living): my personal change on its own will not change the course of the climate crisis. It is evident that the most impactful change is a transformation of our systems (our laws & regulations, our economic system, our social values,…).

This power tool considers a paradox brought by some clients: when the desire to act is prevented from acting. The client is motivated to act, yet his/her emotions and beliefs about action come in the way of actually moving forward. This power tool supports the client in adjusting his/her sense of agency by exploring emotions and beliefs they hold around climate change and reconnecting them to a more personal purpose.

Four Simple Ways to Reduce Overwhelm vs. Meaningful Steps 

1. Client Request

The client will come with a desire to play a part in the climate action but they will express a concern that most likely look like “I’m stuck and don’t manage to do anything”, “I’m not doing enough” or “I’m lost as to how to move to actions” coupled with a sense of being overwhelmed or heaviness – though this may not be conscientious yet.

The client will seek ways to get unstuck and move to action as a sense of contributing to climate action.

2. Exploring the Current Perspective Emotions

The climate crisis is like no other:

• Because of its long-term consequences, the perspective that the current climate crisis brings upon us is as dramatic as a war or as a devastating cataclysm and as such can bring a large range of heavy emotions: despair, hopelessness, fear, anxiety,…
• And yet, because for most it has no immediate manifestation in their life, it tends to be forgotten in the busy stream of day-to-day concerns. When confronted with this contradiction about themselves or others, individuals may experience guilt, anger, hatred, disappointment, disgust,…
• The climate crisis challenges our current ways of life and calls for deep and significant change. When facing this reality, individuals may feel threatened, scared, uncomfortable, lost, overwhelmed, etc.
• Climate change is seen by many as a crisis of the system in which we are living in, and as such, climate action collides with the inertia of this very system. This may generate a sense of powerlessness and hopelessness in people.

It becomes clear that individuals can be very much burdened and overwhelmed by negative emotions around the climate crisis and climate action. Exploring these emotions is therefore essential to the coaching process. By becoming aware of his/her emotions, the client will be able to label them and recognize the impact they have on him/her. This is the first step to working through them.

Questions to explore the emotions and their impact on the client:

• What emotions come up for you when evoking climate change?
• When do these emotions manifest themselves?
• Where in your body do these emotions sit?
• What are you thinking when these emotions come up?
• What happens to you as a result of these emotions?
• How do these emotions influence your current perspective?

Beliefs

In the area of climate action, the current narrative exposes individuals to internalizing beliefs such as:

• I must act without delay: “there’s no time”, “we have already reached some tipping points”, “we must act now otherwise it will be too late”,…
• I must do more / a lot: “we are so far behind”, “we need to move faster”, “we need to act stronger”,…
• I have a great responsibility: “this is the legacy to our children”, “future generations will bear the consequences of what we are doing now”, and “my child will leave in this future”…

When considering action, other beliefs may come into play :

• If what I do doesn’t result in a change, then what I’m doing is useless. The individual action is dissolved in collective action, making it difficult to get a sense of impact or progress.
• I should be selfless, this is not just about me but about the future of our kind. Altruistic action may lead individuals to disconnect from their own needs and what makes sense for their own life.

These beliefs can lead people to feel they have to do so much so fast. As a result, they may feel like there’s a big wall ahead of them, generating a feeling of overwhelm.

These internalized stories can also generate self-criticism and perfectionism.

• “I must do more / a lot” becomes “I’m not doing enough” or even “I’m not good enough to help”.

It can also generate guilt and shame:

• “I have a great responsibility” becomes “I’m letting down my children/future generations/others fighting for change” or “I’m a terrible person for not doing anything”.

All of this is feeding a sense of not being enough. The individual’s energy is sucked into negative self-talk. The resources to move forward into action becomes scarcer. Getting unstuck becomes increasingly difficult.

It is therefore important to bring awareness to the client on the self-talk he/she is having around his/her action (or the lack thereof) and explore how this self-talk is impacting his/her ability to move to action.

Some questions to start investigating beliefs:

• What motivates you to act about climate change?
• What is keeping you from moving forward?
• What beliefs do you hold around individual climate action?
• What is the story you are telling yourself when you feel overwhelmed?
• What will be different for you once you move to action?
• How are your beliefs supporting you in moving to action?

3. Exploring a New Perspective

The purpose of the coaching discussion is to move away from the disabling perspective to a more empowering perspective, aligned with who the client is. Once emotions and beliefs, and the relationship they sustain with the individual’s desire to act has been made explicit, the coaching discussion can focus on supporting the emergence of a new perspective that serves better the client’s objective.

This entails exploring the relationship between the desire of acting and the individual’s self, and reconnecting him/her to a sense of wholeness: what are his/her values, how he/she is projecting his/her future, what personal meaning is attached to action… From this new perspective, actions better suited to the client will emerge as he/she updates his/her definition of success.

Stories in the media are still vastly pushing the narrative of a major crisis, catastrophic, doom-like event. They rarely provide aspirational visions for the future (e.g. « an opportunity for building better »), success stories (when acting does have an impact now), or positive “simple joe” role models (« this is possible », « this is how others did it »). Such stories can help individuals develop a clear sense of purpose for themselves, connect to their own interests and talents, and therefore develop a better sense of agency. The coaching conversation can support the client in making a similar journey toward building a realistic yet meaningful vision for action.

Questions:

• How much of who you are is currently reflected in your objective to act about climate change?
• How would it look like to act more from the perspective of who you are? How can action be more aligned with your personal values and/or your talents?
• What future do you dream of? What is true about yourself in this vision? How can acting about climate change support your vision for the future?

4. Co-creating a Realistic Action Plan

Once the client has formed a new perspective of what acting about climate means for him/her and what it looks like, the last piece is to support the client in crafting action that is sustainable for him/her. This involves:

• Supporting him/her in identifying small achievable steps (as opposed to overwhelming steps as in the previous situation). This will allow the client to obtain quick successes and create/reinforce a positive action loop, more likely to lead to long-term action.
• Supporting him/her in anchoring action in his/her reality: what are his/her constraints or needs, what are his/her preferences… The self-judgment the client was holding in the previous perspective might have left him/her thinking the action had to be difficult or unpleasant. Challenging this is serving the client in reinforcing the new perspective the client has formed, one that is connected to his/her being.
• Supporting him/her in identifying people and resources that can provide a support system going forward
• Support him/her in identifying accountability methods that are mindful and caring about him/her

Questions:

• How energizing your objective to act currently is? How much your desire to act is respectful of your own needs? How can acting about climate change be sustainable for you too?
• What needs to change in your objective to fit in your new perspective?
• What’s the first small step you can take towards your objective?
• Who can support you in your objective? What resources are available to you?
• How will you make yourself accountable for this new objective?

A Way to Feel Overwhelm vs. Meaningful Steps 

The topic of climate change particularly exposes the dehumanization of action and often leaves people to think they must somehow do things perfectly or else they are not doing enough. This explains in part the overwhelm a lot of people experience. Such a feeling makes it harder for people to gain access to their inner resources. This result in feeling stuck and sustaining negative self-talk. An option to get unstuck is to help the client to draw a personal vision for the future that redefines his/her purpose for action and reconnects him/her to who he/she is and his/her resources: his/her values, talents, and needs. Finally, working on small steps that can be easily achieved allows for the client to enter quickly into a positive dynamic that can feed a positive sense of self and support long-term action.