Yannick’s Coaching Lab features guest coaches from a broad variety of approaches, who showcase how they work as part of a live 45min coaching session, followed by reflections and Q&A with the audience.
Curious to know what this session was like? Have a peek at the Lab Report below or consider VIP membership to access the full recording of this and many more exciting sessions.
Yannick’s Coaching Lab #57 — Beth Clare McManus
Lab Report by Natalie Fraser
Pre-Session Summary
Beth’s client has just turned 50 and is reflecting on this stage of life. One regret they identified was never having taken art GCSE. Age 30, they took an art class and an art A level, and this has informed their coaching practice. In this session, they would like to understand how they can bring more creativity into their work and life. Over the session, the client gained insights into how judgement, restrictions, and expectations were inhibiting their creative process. Coach and client worked with mark-making, lettering, and drawing to create deep insights. The session ended in an emotional release.
Session Summary
Beth and her client has an exploration call before today’s session, where they explored some themes for what this session would focus on. https://drive.google.com/file/d/17uX3wEzDdrnAppg3F6AzCt3BGn_LrJgO/view?usp=sharing
“I’m trying not to correct you” Beth shared they were having a strong reaction to the client saying “how do I” and invited them to rephrase the “do” to “might”
What structure helps you? This intervention inspired the client to recognize the importance of other people as a motivating factor, such as the structure of being on an art course
I love creating ideas but I have a fear of making them happen
“There feels quite a lot of judgement there” Beth picked up on her client’s judgement about making a mess vs making something beautiful, leading the client to reflect that this judgement is related to being faithful to what is important to them, and organization and order is an important value.
“Can you tell me about a piece of art that you made that you really loved” The client was able to describe a number of pieces of their art. Beth wrote down a list of words that came up for her during this description, and read this list back to their client with the intention of finding a direction for their session. The client was invited to share what stood out to them from this list.
“I’m going to invite you to take a piece of paper and just make a mark on it” this invitation was made due to the potentially imposing nature of a crisp blank piece of paper. This was a familiar exercise for the client, who said it was the first thing they learnt in their art A level.
Faithfulness was identified as an important theme, and Beth invited the client to explore this. Her client wrote this on a page, and Beth asked which color the client chose. Pink was chosen, and identified as not a preferred color. Beth invited her client to write the word in their chosen color (teal), and they discussed the different styles of words and their meaning. This discussion brought up themes of music, colour, “should” and “can’t”, reframing narratives of childhood, and play.
“I’ve had this picture forming in my head” Beth shared this image with her client, who built on this metaphor with her own interpretation of the image with themes of restriction, judgement, and perfect not being helpful coming up. Beth invited her client to draw this image on the page, leading to a discussion around this and how it represented her client’s situation.
Closing comments. Beth noted that they had only a couple of minutes left of the session, and invited her client to share anything that stood out to her. The client shared “play, or not” “perfect not helpful” “embrace the process not a perfect outcome” “permission to allow more space”.
Key Insights
The client found the session very helpful, particularly because the interventions used came naturally to her in this space in contrast to other spaces where she reflected that she doesn’t always “allow” herself to. This was related to the client feeling she can trust the space, the process, and the coach due to feeling safe.
Beth reflected that before the session she felt a little bit nervous, and chose to hold onto this and bring it to the session, believing that a little bit of fear can be valuable to coaches.
Beth experienced the session as joyful, and shared that being with someone going through a creative process is her favorite part of the job.
Beth recognizes that she is not a “purist question asker” and for example sharing her emotional experience where intuitively appropriate is an important part of working relationally. She sees the coaching relationship as working together, being a passenger alongside, where two people are sharing an experience.
Unless the client wants to work in a goal-oriented way, Beth has learned over time that what’s important will surface and the more rigid you are around defining the first thing that a client brings, the harder it can be for the session to develop beyond this. Instead, Beth makes great effort to keep the process tethered “finding and holding threads” whilst allowing their client to be free – checking in with them if they would like to be brought into a focus or remain more free-flowing.
Beth emphasized the importance of checking whether using arts-based interventions lands with each client, as this approach will not necessarily resonate with everyone. These interventions can feel quite revolutionary for some clients, especially those more familiar with traditional talking methods and those who identify themselves as “not creative”.
Taking into account the constraints of session time was an important aspect of Beth deciding which ‘threads’ to explore.
Having a piece of paper is an important part of the client’s daily processing, and this being actively encouraged as an intervention in the session was found to aid her thinking process and ability to bring herself to the process.
Beth consciously did not ask her client to share her artwork with her as her belief is that it is not about the client creating something for the coach to see and this gives them freedom to not feel judgement and expectations around what they produce.
