Striving
The series
Patterns are everywhere. This case study is the first in a series of case studies exploring patterns I’ve observed in my executive clients, sharing some of the insights, tools, and practices that have been useful. See Externalising blame and People pleasing.
This, like the other case studies that will be featured in this series, is fictitious. This is a culmination of many clients and their stories to maintain anonymity. In this series, ‘the work’ offers some of the most impactful reflections, interventions, and insights from across these many different clients.
The series follows an event I delivered for Animas Centre for Coaching - ‘Executive Coaching: Busting the myths on what it takes to coach leaders’. It prompted a subsequent flurry of interest in some of the insights and tools shared during the event.
Why patterns?
Applied behavioural science teaches us that humans follow ingrained, habitual patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.
Patterns are an integral part of my transformational coaching experience.
Patterns keep us safe. Unconsciously, they protect us from our deepest fears. They keep us safe in most situations long term, until they don’t. So, getting up close to, understanding, and befriending them is key to any meaningful transformation.
Leaders, like all humans, behave, think, and feel in patterns.
As a transformational coach, it is my responsibility to look out for patterns. They give me clues as to what might be getting in the way for my clients.
I don’t always see patterns immediately. In fact, it often takes time, and that’s ok. If I don’t recognise patterns straight away, I’m keenly aware that I’m missing the opportunity for deep work.
When I notice one, my job is to get really curious with my client…
What is striving?
The dictionary defines ‘striving’ as “trying very hard to do something or make something happen” - no bad thing, right?!
It is a behavioural pattern which is almost universal in leaders. I can think of less than a handful of my clients who don’t relate to striving.
It’s a large part of what has made them successful and got them where they are. They are ambitious, driven, high achievers. Striving is their superpower and MO.
But, there is usually a point at which it no longer serves them or circumstances in which ‘striving’ is counterproductive.
As a coach, you might hear:
“I just need to get to ‘x’. ‘X’ is a point in time, milestone, or stage in my career and then I’ll rest, slow down, and feel like I deserve it.”
“I’m always working in my head, even when I’m with family, I’m not really ‘there’.”
“I can’t stop checking my phone or email even though it’s out of hours or I’m on leave.”
Many of the leaders I work with end up burning out, losing their passion and drive, reaching the highest levels of leadership and realising that the satisfaction they thought they would get still evades them.
Sound familiar?
It’s easy to see how a habit of striving serves leaders extremely well. It drives them to do more, work harder, and go higher. And so, they do; and they build lives that are highly externally rewarding.
What is eroding, and why clients bring it to coaching, is that it never quite satisfies the longing deep inside. When that fictitious point in time in the future never comes - the point at which they think they will have ‘done it’, proven they can, be able to rest or feel content - then, it’s time to have a re-think.
This is because the striving is often to fill an unconscious, unmet human need – to be seen, to be considered, to be ‘good enough’.
And that’s where transformational coaching comes in.
What happens in coaching?
The temptation is to coach around the issue, to come up with solutions to break these cycles. This can mean taking emails off the phone, turning the phone off at the weekend, finding time to rest, or planning to go to the gym.
All of these things are useful in the short term but rarely stick without doing the deeper work. You may be able to relate to this if you have ever tried to change a behaviour through willpower alone.
So, we unpack it. We look at:
What’s driving the striving?
How is it serving?
What are the beliefs sitting unconsciously underneath the surface?
How is it not serving?
Where is the edge?
With striving, it’s often the case that the person’s sense of self is deeply entwined with what they achieve at work – no wonder given the way society portrays success. For some people this association of self-worth with work-based achievement is stronger than for others - for leaders, as I say, it’s almost universal.
In coaching, it can help to unpack what the unconscious, human need is that sits underneath the striving. Similar to Nancy Kline’s work with assumptions, you can get to the bottom of the need by asking “to what end” over and over again until you get to the root.
Working on articulating the client’s big picture purpose and values gives high achievers an alternative internal compass. It helps to guide them in changing the behaviours that are no longer serving them. We ask existential questions such as:
Who do you want to be?
What do you want to be remembered for?
What do you want people to say in your eulogy?
I sometimes, unashamedly, provide input. I share what I have learnt about the nervous system and the brain to help them see their responses as what they are, a perfectly human, natural survival response. As a society, many of us have rewired our brains to believe that there is safety in keeping moving – that if we are not moving, climbing, or achieving more, we are not safe, we might fail, or we have no purpose or value to society.
‘The work’, as in most cases, boils down to helping the client gain a deeper understanding of themselves so that they can show themselves compassion and make more conscious choices about what they strive for. They learn how to meet their deeper human needs so that they can be driven by their passion and dreams rather than by fear.