Building self-worth and self-image is a core ambition of Continue & Begin Fast Coaching®. When a person feels good about herself ambition for further personal development becomes less daunting, even appealing! Virginia Satir, the celebrated family therapist, observed similarly;
“I am convinced that the crucial factor in what happens both inside people and between people is the picture of individual worth that each person carries around with him…” Peoplemaking, Satir, V., Science & behaviour Books, 1972
The language pattern “And what else?” is an example of building a pattern of affirmations to build recognition of successes and create a resultant enhanced perception of Self. The pattern may be presented in a variety of guises;
“Tell me some more things that went well…”
“Think about (explicit operating standards, agreed goals, stated ambitions). Which were you able to implement, fully or partially?”
“What about X? (when evidence suggests success) How did that go?”
“I bet there were other things you were pleased with. What were they”
It is this building of patterns of success which develops a momentum of productive thinking and a gradual layering of positive well-being. The process becomes easier as it progresses to mirror a ‘Yes Set’ of regulated thinking – a habit of thinking positively about Self, an attitude of repeated recognition of personal achievement, no matter how small.
Dimitri (Dmitry Nikolaevich) Uznadze was a Georgian psychologist (1886 – 1950). In his research paper Theory of Attitude and Set Udnadze illustrated how repetitive mental habit creates an embedded pattern of thinking. During a series of experiments he had students handle a pair of balls placed simultaneously in his or her hand and say which is the larger.
‘The balls are presented several (ten to fifteen) times so that the set or disposition (to identify the big one and the small one) induced on each occasion becomes sufficiently well reinforced (these are set inducing tests), after which ‘say the sixteenth time’, the original balls of different sizes are replaced by two of identical size, although the subject is still asked to compare their sizes. This test usually reveals that the subject has acquired a fixed set corresponding to the previous tests and now judges one of the two equal-sized balls to be ‘larger’ or ‘smaller’. The set-inducing tests have created a state producing the illusionary perception that equal-sized balls are of different sizes.’
PROSPECTS: the quarterly review of comparative education (Paris, UNESCO: International Bureau of Education), vol. 24, no.3/4, 1994, p. 687–701 UNESCO: International Bureau of Education, 2002
In Continue & Begin Fast Coaching® we use Yes Set thinking to build up a pattern of positivity for our coachee. You may be curious, “What else?” could you use Yes Set thinking for?