So why is it that we rarely have the chance to reflect? Think about how many times you have been in a situation where you have really struggled to put your thoughts together in a cohesive way.  Have you ever been in a situation where you felt rushed because of time constraints, and then when you tried to verbalise your thoughts, all the words came out in the wrong way?

To give some examples of when either of these could occur, think job interviews, an important meeting, a presentation to an audience, or an appointment with a doctor or a solicitor. Bearing all of these scenarios in mind, how often have you been put on the spot to give an answer or make a decision, but because of the pressure you were under, what you said was not the best you could have chosen?

To take this even further, how many times have you come away from one of these scenarios and then suddenly everything you should have said miraculously comes into your head? Maybe there have been times when you wish you had planned better by thinking through beforehand about what you wanted to ask or say.

The main point being made here is that in our fast-moving lives, full of stress and a great deal of information overload, we rarely find good quality time to reflect. In simply meeting the day-to-day demands of our everyday lives, all too often there is no time left over for reflection about where our lives are leading or, even more important, where it is supposed to lead. It is so easy to lose sight of long-term goals when you are busy dealing with more immediate challenges. Even in our schools today, timetables are so full with subject content involving the learning of knowledge, that children are rarely given time, or taught, to think and to reflect. These skills are vital for a whole range of activities in our rapidly changing world, such as: problem-solving, evaluating, assessing, adapting and modifying – to name just a few.

So why is the ability to reflect so important and what exactly does it involve? The verb ‘to reflect’ originates from the Latin word ‘reflectere’ – meaning to bend back. By a simpler definition, to reflect involves thinking and/or expressing carefully considered thoughts. If we look at the noun ‘reflection’, its sense comes out much stronger – it means a thought or opinion resulting from careful consideration during mental concentration. To give an example in relation to the earlier scenarios, you could say after an interview: “Upon reflection, I wish I had expressed my opinions and ideas more clearly.” In many ways, that sentence highlights the major problem – there was no time for reflection during the event, and this is very common in our lives.

Effective and excellent coaching should always involve a great deal of thinking and reflecting. These are vital ingredients for a coach to be able to take the coachee forward and help them find solutions and pathways to facilitate the necessary changes required. It’s a two-way process – the coach frequently reflects on the required action and strategies appropriate for the coachee, and the coachee reflects a lot on how they are going to take the action and what obstacles or barriers they might encounter along the way.

Up unto now, coaching has traditionally been carried out on a one-on-one basis – either face-to-face or over the telephone. Modern technology, as rapidly changing as it is, even now allows us to talk over the internet with a headset and speakers. The next step on from this was only ever going to be a short matter of time away – namely eLearning based programmes with automated responses and/or feedback via email. And now, Coaching Interactive has arrived to bring affordable and reflective coaching to the masses, wherever they are and at whatever time.

The beauty of interactive online coaching is that, unlike traditional one-on-one coaching, it allows more quality time for reflection in a choice of environments – many of which are much more conducive to reflective thinking. Going back to the scenarios outlined earlier in this chapter, most of those situations contain factors which inhibit reflective thinking – such as limited time, feelings of anxiety or nervousness, being intimidated, and simply not feeling comfortable in a highly pressurised environment. Coaching Interactive enables the coachee  to work through coaching programmes in the comfort of their own home and at a time that is most suited to them. In fact, you can take as much time as you need before committing to answering a question – and if you change your mind, you can go back to it and make amendments.

The coaching environment is a key element of effective coaching and getting productive results from a client. In this light, there are certain characteristics of environments that can promote and support reflective thought. The table below illustrates the extent to which Coaching Interactive meets these characteristics.

Characteristics of environments supporting reflective thinking	Coaching Interactive……..
Provide enough wait-time to reflect before responding.	enables clients to take as much time as they want to type answers to questions and to save drafts that can be returned to and edited as many times as is necessary.
Prompt thoughts by asking questions that seek reasons and evidence.	Programmes have questionnaires built into them with many open-ended questions to enable the client to really analyse their thoughts.
Provide good explanations to guide thought processes.	Programmes are carefully structured in a step-by-step approach. Each step is very clearly explained in easy to understand language.
Provide a less-structured environment that prompts a person to explore what they really think is important.	provides many opportunities for clients to give their views and opinions on issues affecting their lives, for example by identifying and exploring their values and beliefs.
Provide a reflective journal, as an aid to the process of recording and analysing actions, thoughts and feelings.	provides a built-in system of storing data such as questionnaires, emails, tasks and the online calendar – all of which form a personal journal for the client.

The Reflective Journal is a method that most coaches introduce to their clients and is most effective as support for the whole coaching process. The written word, or in this case the typed word, is an excellent way of reflecting. By recording your experiences, thoughts and feelings in a systematic way, it enables you to analyse what you have written and as a consequence gain more insight. Increased insight is another very important part of being coached, especially in terms of planning life goals and how you are going to get to where you want to be. It is also the ideal way of identifying the barriers and obstacles you may encounter along the way, and which potentially may jeopardise your progress towards achieving your goals and aspirations.

Many people who keep daily diaries find this an excellent way to reflect on a range of everyday problems and situations – perhaps by asking themselves: What went well? What didn’t? Why? How do I feel about it? By writing these things down, thoughts and emotions are allowed to gradually come to the surface. You could say that reflective writing is essentially a kind of loose processing of thoughts and feelings about an incident, a situation, an event, or any experience at all.

All the data a client enters by answering questions in any of the programmes on Coaching Interactive is stored within their journal and can be returned to and amended over and over again. Time restrictions within traditional one-on-one coaching sessions do not allow as much for this level of re-visiting and re-thinking. It is the perfect way of fine-tuning your thoughts and reflections, facilitating a much greater chance of success and achievement. This level of repetition, often by going over something several times, helps to give a broader view and check nothing has been missed. Again, this is an experience we are so rarely afforded in our lives – whether it is as a student in the classroom or as a potential employee in the interview. This type of online reflection is an extremely useful way of getting the best out of someone, which is one of the main priorities for any coach.

The coach too, during interactive coaching, can record notes in response to a client’s answers to the questionnaires and refer to these when planning future sessions. The coach can also set tasks for the coachee and the calendar system acts as reminder of what needs to be done. All of these processes contribute to building up a reflective journal for each coachee. It can really help confidence by being able to look back over a journal and see progress, how difficulties were dealt with, and how the ideas have moved on.

Another very important element of reflection is that it turns experience into meaningful learning, helps us to make sense of the world around us and to learn from previous experience. How many times have you looked back on an event, thought about what happened and then considered what you would do differently in the future? These experiences can sometimes become blurred unless they are written down. When you are in an interview it is extremely hard to stand back and reflect when you are so caught up in the nerves of the interview. ‘Standing back’ helps give a better view or perspective on an experience, issue or action.

Coaching Interactive provides a structured step-by-step process to help you think about the issues in your life and what can be learned from them. Many of the questions are designed to help you reflect on events, situations and feelings in your life. This reflective process is illustrated in the following table.

1.     Identify the experience, situation, or event which occurred.	For example, a failed relationship.
2.     Describe the experience or situation.	What happened? Who was involved? What did you do? Why did you do what did you do? How did this affect you?
3.     Analyse the experience or situation.	What were you thinking or feeling? What was good and bad about the experience? What skills were used or developed? What were the consequences of your actions for yourself and others?
4.     Learn from the experience or situation.	What else could you have done? If it happened again what would you do differently? How can you improve your knowledge and skills? How can you use what you learned from the experience in your future practice?

Perhaps one of the greatest benefits of online coaching is that the level of reflection it allows enables the coachee to express deeper honesty. Reflection is often associated with ’striving for truth’, and online it is much easier for people to acknowledge things that they find difficult to admit in the normal course of events. Face-to-face coaching or one-on-one coaching over the telephone can often lead to feelings of being put on the spot or embarrassment. Are clients always totally honest in these situations? Do they not sometimes feel awkward about telling the coach certain things that they think will make them look silly? These issues are much less likely to arise online, as there is a certain level of anonymity attached to it and far less fear of being judged.

Ultimately, reflecting about your life through an online coaching programme can also bring much greater clarity, like seeing events literally reflected in a mirror. This can help at any stage of planning, carrying out and reviewing activities. It also enables more balanced judgements to be made by taking everything into account, and not just the obvious. If you forget what you said in the previous session, you have the option to look back and review your statements and observations.

Finally to conclude, it would be useful to examine the thoughts of John Dewey, who is one of the most renowned writers about reflective thinking. He said:

“We all acknowledge, in words at least, that ability to think is highly important; it is regarded as the distinguishing power that marks man from the lower animals. But since our ordinary notions of how and why thinking is important are vague, it is worthwhile to state explicitly the values possessed by reflective thought. In the first place, it emancipates us from merely impulsive and merely routine activity. Put in positive terms, thinking enables us to direct our activities with foresight and to plan according to ends-in-view, or to come into command of what is now distant and lacking. By putting the consequences of different ways and lines of action before the mind, it enables us to know what we are about when we act. It converts action that is merely appetitive, blind and impulsive into intelligent action.” (p.212, John Dewey on Education, University of Chicago Press, 1974)

Dewey makes several key points here that not only highlight the benefits of reflective thinking, but also how online coaching provides greater opportunities for this to take place. For example, he mentions “merely impulsive and routine activity” – this surely illustrates how people generally go about their lives, especially when faced with a challenge. In an interview, most of the answers we give are impulsive as there is little time to truly reflect. However, in answering important questions about yourself and your life through an online questionnaire, you are able to take your time and perfect your responses by changing it as often as you wish – giving a much more honest and accurate answer.

Dewey explains how thinking “enables us to direct our activities with foresight and to plan accordingly to ends-in-view”. How many people in their everyday lives plan with great foresight? Generally, they have ideas floating around in their heads about what they would like to do or achieve, but how rigorously is this planned for? Many people are afraid to plan and set goals because they fear failure. What they don’t realise is that achieving the goal isn’t half as important as setting it and then taking massive action towards its attainment. Coaching Interactive enables the coachee to focus through reflection and prepare for taking action – “intelligent action”, as Dewey calls it. We all know that the harder you prepare, the greater the chances of success.

Lastly, to return to Confucius – we are all constantly searching for greater wisdom. Wisdom that will help enhance our lives so that we can be as happy, successful and productive in all our endeavours, as is possible.  At last, the convenience of the internet, skilled coaches and powerful online tools, are combined to enable anybody to learn wisdom through structured and effective reflection.

Why not try a FREE interactive online coaching session now?Just go to the home page and click on the blue banner.

Let me know how you get on with it.

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