A Coaching Power Tool By Lenord Melvix, Career and Leadership Coach, UNITED STATES
Drudgery vs. Opportunity
Both in personal and professional life, we have a mix of exciting things that you look forward to doing and things that you are not so excited about but still have to accomplish in order to keep things moving. In this paper, we present a coaching power tool that can support clients feeling stuck at work or personal life on tasks that aren’t exciting them or instead draining the energy out of them. And discuss how we can shift their perspective to shine a light on the situation from a different angle that can help the client take a more positive view of the situation and themselves.
Negative Perspective: Drudgery
Drudgery is defined as the feeling of being stuck doing mind-numbing grind work that isn’t exciting for the person working on this. Depending on the personality and preferences, what type of work is considered drudgery varies from person to person – ranging from doing dishes to preparing meals (in personal life) or accounting to tax preparation (in professional life). Often when the client takes a drudgerous view of their situation it makes them feel negative and low and drains the energy out of them as they work through the task.
Flip Perspective: Opportunity
In this power tool, we present the Opportunistic view as the flipped positive perspective to Drudgery. In this context, spending time and energy on drudgery tasks could also be viewed from a positive angle by challenging the client on what it enables them to do.
Depending on the situation, the enablement may mean different things to the client. For example:
- If the client views washing dishes as drudgery: The opportunistic view would mean that it is enabling them to cook healthy delicious meals for themselves and family. And also save the expense that they could instead use for something else more valuable.
- If the client views doing the tax filing themselves as drudgery: The opportunistic view would mean that it is enabling them to learn and understand the tax system better and employ smarter tax-saving strategies going forward for the financial benefit of themselves and their dependents
Effective Coaching Questions: Drudgery vs. Opportunity
Some effective coaching questions that have supported me in flipping the perspective are:
- How do you feel about the <drudgery>?
- What about the <drudgery> is making you feel that way?
- How is engaging in the <drudgery> serving you?
- How do you feel about the benefits you gain from engaging in <drudgery>?
- What alternatives do you have if <drudgery> is not an option?
- How do you feel about these alternatives?
- What is coming in the way of you choosing these alternatives?
- If choosing an alternative is not an option, what else could you modify about the <drudgery> to make it feel better for you?