Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay
At some point in my work with most clients--often several times--they will wrestle with a predicament. A predicament is some kind of challenging, perplexing, or trying situation that we struggle to navigate. Predicaments are complex and often difficult to extricate yourself from. We face predicaments at work and in our personal lives all the time.
Even if I had the wisdom to offer solutions to every predicament that clients face (and I don't), my job as a coach is to help clients do two things. First, using a series of questions, I help them drill down and explore all the elements of the predicament. The second step is helping the client identify their options for addressing it.
In his book Learned Optimism, psychologist Martin Seligman says that there are habits of mind that get in the way of our resilience in the face of predicaments. He calls them the three P's: permanence, pervasiveness, and personalization. What he means is that people often erroneously conclude that a predicament is permanent, that it pervades every area of their lives, and that it is within the personal control of the individual. Believing these three things to be true, people often feel helpless to address the predicament.
I use Seligman's observations to help clients identify ways to address a predicament. I ask first, "Is the problem permanent?" Usually, the answer is no. Most predicaments grow out of temporary situations. If the answer is "yes, this situation probably won't change," then the client and I will explore a different set of options than if the predicament has an end point.
The second question I ask is whether the predicament is pervasive. This asks the clients to look at the big picture of their lives. Is this predicament so pervasive that it dominates every aspect of the client's life. Again, a yes answer will generate a very different list of options than a no.
And the final question relates to your level of personal control in the situation. I ask "where is your agency here?" In other words, what can you control in this predicament? There's little point in hammering away at things beyond your control. It's far more effective to focus on the things within your control.
These questions usually help a client look at a predicament from all angles and come up with healthy ways of navigating it. Next time you are facing a predicament, ask yourself: is it permanent? is it pervasive? what's within your personal control?