A Research Paper By Laetitia Bertrand, Life Coach (Confidence and Inspiration), FRANCE
How the Process of Anchoring Inspiration(s)
ICF defines coaching as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.1 There are different ways to tap into their potential; in this paper, we will focus on the role inspiration plays in initiating the chain of events that leads toward potential. So, what does inspiration feel like? “The universal physical and emotional signals of inspiration [are] the chills up the arms, the hair standing up on the back of the neck, the nervous stomach, the buzzy thoughts, that feeling of falling into love or obsession,” according to Elizabeth Gilbert2. At least that is one description of it; people can have different ones3. We will look at different types of inspirations, what I call unexplored, explored, and mapped-out inspirations, and how they interact with motivation. Then, we will investigate how the process of anchoring inspiration(s), specifically during a coaching session, can support clients in living toward their potential outside of a coaching environment.
Inspiration(s), Motivations, and Metaphors:
Let us start by defining this paper’s pillar words to start on solid foundations :
Anchoring is an NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) term used to describe the process by which you apply a gesture, touch, or sound at the peak of a state, either in oneself or someone else. […]Once this association has occurred, you can then trigger the experience at will4.
Motivation is defined as enthusiasm for doing something5; it is action-packed. While there are multiple6 types of motivation, as explained here, “Intrinsic motivation describes the undertaking of an activity for its inherent satisfaction while extrinsic motivation describes behavior driven by external rewards or punishments, abstract or concrete”7we will focus on the intrinsic one in this paper.
Inspiration is defined as what makes someone feel that they want to do something and are confident they can do it8. While multiple inspirations can steer us toward the same potential, every inspiration is unique and can be leveraged in its own way. An interesting thing to note about inspiration is that it is also defined as the act of breathing in8.
That second definition of inspiration allows us to demonstrate through a metaphor how those three elements can interact and be interdependent. Do you think about breathing in (and out, too, to be fair) every single time you do it throughout your life? Or do you instead live your life by doing things and essentially forget you are breathing until something “unexpected” happens: you run to catch the bus, you hold your breath in the waves, you are sick, you sing, you meet someone special, you are waiting in tight anticipation, you are relived…. – or something “more” happens: you consciously acknowledge your breath with something like a breathing exercise. If you have gone with option two, you can probably see why inspiration is so well defined: inspiration as a whole IS breathing. While it is not always remembered or noticed, and only sometimes valued, it is always present.
Furthermore, if the only thing you did with your life were to breathe, it would not be that interesting, would it? So, those things you can do thanks to breathing that constitute living your life, that is (intrinsic) motivation. Moreover, in the metaphor, the “unexpected” reminds you of your breath, and the “more” helps honor your breath: they are both anchoring.
As mentioned above, we will assume there are three types of inspirations: unexplored, explored, and mapped out. They all have the same basic signals as far as how they feel, but each type has a different motivational capacity. Let us look at them in turns :
The unexplored inspiration gives us that high like at the cinema, but it is not readily linked to our lives or even our realities, and sometimes we do not realize what exactly is appealing to us. Therefore we want to create a tangible change or result but cannot sustain the motivation just yet. In the metaphorical sense, the “unexpected” could be represented as a scuba tank connected to a regulator. If you have never seen scuba gear like that before, you are not really sure how to use it or what the point of it really is; however, because you are currently inspired, you automatically have it on. You are on firm ground, though, so while you notice that you can use it to breathe just fine, albeit strangely, you figure there has to be more to it.
Because it is new and you do not have much of an understanding of that specific inspiration yet, it is fleeting, so you have to be careful to notice it. If you are curious enough, anchor that feeling so you can return to it. It is similar to picking up a book at the bookstore and, after liking the cover and being intrigued by the summary deciding to bring it home to add to your to-read pile. It is not yet in your bookcase -personal inspiration library- but it could end up there.
With the explored inspiration, the first step is to well… explore that feeling. Do a quick search to better understand what scuba gear can enable you to do, and then you can decide if you want to integrate diving into your life and commit to learning how to use it. Read the contents and flip through the book. You do not have to learn or read. You might not want to learn to use all of the gear; it might be too uncomfortable; you might not like deep waters, or any other reason is valid. You can drop the idea of scuba diving and return the book to the bookshop. The inspiration has been explored enough for you to decide that you want to let it go. However, if you decide this inspiration is worth it, the second step is learning to use the gear. You can dive into deep waters, and the gear simply becomes a way to breathe – without being focused on it – while doing something else.
You are now familiar with that specific inspiration high; you understand what this inspiration can do for you. You have read the book, decided to keep it, and put it on your inspiration library’s bookshelf.
The mapped-out inspiration is a specific explored inspiration that has been extensively studied and purposefully tested. It is the “more” aspect of the breathing metaphor; you can control and honor your breath. You are taking care of your scuba gear autonomously and can go for a dive anytime. You are not only familiar with that specific inspiration feeling but also attuned to it and can tap into it when you need to because you have learned to activate it. What is even better is that you understand how to use it in a way that triggers sustainable motivation that serves your goals. Just like your scuba gear has a limited capacity that you need to refill at the end of each dive, this inspiration is powerful but not infinite. This is where the notion of an anchor comes back; the inspiration has not moved away, and you can consciously revisit it and reignite its power. The book is in your inspiration library, and you know it so well that you know what parts to read to get that high dose of inspiration, but then again, sometimes it is good to re-read the whole book to be fully re-inspired.
Tip: Just like your scuba gear can be improved and your book can have a revised edition, consider your mapped-out inspiration as a dynamic resource, as explained here “All maps reflect our understanding of the territory at that moment in time. We change, and maps change with us.”9
Now that we have examined inspirations and their effect on motivation let us look at them through a coaching lens and investigate how anchoring them during a coaching session can support clients to live in alignment with their potential outside of the coaching environment.
Inspirations and Use in Coaching:
Clients rarely come into a session declaring they need to be coached on their inspiration. Instead, they will come with what we all have “[…] goals we want to reach, challenges we’re striving to overcome and times when we feel stuck.”10
Goals and challenges complement each other and are usually the clients’ ways of building and exceeding their potential – someone who has potential is capable of doing, being, or becoming what they are not yet by developing their natural abilities or qualities11. They are “inspiration-infused” actions, the motivation that moves us forward in life. If we go back to our breathing metaphor, it is what we do while breathing normally. Goals and challenges can be multimodal: specific or loose while having a general direction; short-term or long-term; mandatory or optional; limiting or expansive; inspiring or tedious; exciting or boring …. and no matter the form they take, a coach’s role is to support their client on their journey, sometimes reflecting back to them their possibilities to aim higher to expand their potential.
When we feel stuck, we go through the motions, feeling frustrated and uninspired. In our metaphor, we breathe – because inspiration is always there within us – but it is shallow. “This breathing pattern also creates tension in other parts of the body and can lead to a lot of everyday problems. […]Our shoulders slump forward, and our posture changes as well.”12 It is like we have lost sight of our inspiration, misplaced it, and we do not know where to look or how to reignite it; or maybe something has changed in our life, and we need to revisit how our inspirations and potentials mesh with each other, that is where coaching can come in.
In a coaching session, it is possible to encounter inspiration as a whole in different ways (the list is non-exhaustive) :
Aspiration: Using powerful questioning can promote clients’ thinking about their aspirations meaning who they want to become -not be mistaken with potential: what they can become
Beliefs: Tackling limiting beliefs and reframing them as supporting beliefs can spark inspiration and create potential
Memories: looking to the past just long enough, identify and extract what inspired clients and see if they can replicate it in the present.
Heroes: Examining clients’ real and fictional models can give them clues and hints about their own capacities
Strength: Determining and focusing on strengths rather than trying to make for weaknesses inspires clients to keep growing.
Values: Identifying and verbing values provide an internal compass to guide and connect clients to what is important to them.
Visualization: Imagining a moment in the future well enough to be able to immerse in it and draw on the feelings it creates
The coaching partnership is like a “breathing retreat” where clients have the space, time, and agency to search within themselves to understand more about their breath and how to tailor it to their life’s needs.
Each coaching session is an opportunity for them to delve into what they want to accomplish and to stumble upon an inspiration. If and when that happens, there are multiple possibilities :
- It is a new inspiration they take notice of and anchor for later exploration.
- It is a new inspiration they explore and discard straight away.
- It is a new inspiration they explore straight away and anchor for later mapping.
- It is a new inspiration they explore and map out during the session.
- It is a known inspiration they explore further and discard.
- It is a known inspiration that they map out.
- It is an explored and mapped-out inspiration they had not recognized in this particular context. Understand territory as inspiration in the following quote “Or better yet, get multiple maps of the same territory. Different explorations require different maps”9.
- It is an explored and mapped-out inspiration they want to revisit to deepen their understanding of it.
The coach can stimulate the process when embodying coaching competencies 4, 5, and 6 by reflecting inspiration to clients and supporting them in their explorations. Competencies 7 and 813 allow the coach to support clients in anchoring their inspirations so they know how to return to that feeling and through what actions. Here are a few examples of questions to ask to anchor and explore inspirations :
- What can help you remember this feeling?
- What feels like a good trigger?
- What about that trigger is so specific that you call on it quickly?
- What activity/thing can you associate with that inspiration?
- What about X inspires you?
- What is happening for you when X inspires you?
- What does the inspiration feel like?
Inspiration in Its Different Nuances and Forms
In this paper, the experience we have focused on inspiration in its different nuances and forms to tap into motivation and progress toward potential. The coach is not always necessary in the processes and exercises we have covered. Indeed clients are capable and the most qualified to do that work on their own if and when they know how to spark inspiration, recognize it, anchor it, and then recall and use it. However, the coach can make the process a much more powerful and swift experience by providing a structured, neutral, and safe space for clients.
References
1 https://coachingfederation.org/
2 Elizabeth Gilbert Big Magic
3 https://www.quora.com/What-does-inspiration-feel-like
4 https://www.nlpworld.co.uk/nlp-glossary/a/anchoring/
5 https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/motivation
6 https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/3-types-motivation-can-inspire-you-do-anything-ncna781826
7 https://www.simplypsychology.org/differences-between-extrinsic-and-intrinsic-motivation.html#What-is-Intrinsic-Motivation
8 Both https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/inspiration and https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/inspire are used here
9 https://fs.blog/understanding-limitations-maps/
10 https://coachingfederation.org/
11 https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/potential
12 https://www.headspace.com/articles/shallow-breathing-whole-body
13 Competencies can be found https://coachingfederation.org/ or on the document titled Updated-ICF-Core-Competencies_English_Brand-Updated