Are you tired of your self-criticism, or of trying to live up to other people’s standards?
Has your perfectionism left you deflated and demotivated?
Do you not even know where to start in finding new joy in your duties, your job, or even your hobbies?
No worries! Read on and I’ll tell you more about the perfect antidote: the Strengths-Based approach.
Creative, intelligent people with differently wired brains can get quite the amount of pushback from people they interact with. “Why are you doing it like THAT?” , “Just follow protocol” , “We’ve always done things this way” , “You need to fall in line”, “Why are you overcomplicating stuff?”.
If you get a lot of negative messages, or if there is a lot of focus on negative feedback or incrementally improving weak spots in your skill set, over time this can ZAP your motivation. If you want to regain it, here is how:
Strengths Awareness is Key
On top of that, people rarely have good awareness of their own Strengths. This is not surprising. Since evolution programmed our brain to pay 4-6 times more attention to negative feedback from our environment, for the purposes of sheer survival. We tend to take for granted the things that we excel at, the things that give us joy and where we exhibit some kind of natural aptitude.
The problem with this lack of attention to and awareness of Strengths and the abundance of attention to deficits is what this does to our motivation and Growth mindset. Strengths are where our joy and our motivation to push through are activated. Strengths energize us. They light up our brains and activate our capacity for creative, problem-solving, and flexible thinking, whereas focusing on deficits can make us defensive and inflexible.
Strenghts-Based Coaching helped me find my feet again when I was feeling very LOST, and stuck on a career crossroads in my early thirties. Even before I learned about my neurodivergence, this method helped me get unstuck, unmask to some degree, and pushed me to dare to be different and step into my own strange powers.
This is why I LOVE to pay it forward and help other people discover their Strengths and put them into operation in new and surprising ways, or just level up how they have been playing with them already.
Want to know more about me as your coach? Check out the About me page
Some of the benefits of doing Strengths-Based work
Strengths are connected to the activities and focus areas that come naturally to us. Working with Strengths energizes us. It connects us deeply and daily to what we can be proud of in ourselves and the things we are willing to work on, invest in, learn from and suffer for. And that’s important, because neurodivergent people often have a very sensitive shame trigger that gets activated by negative feedback and deficit-oriented approaches.
Of course, Strengths-Based work is beneficial for EVERYONE, but it has certain added benefits for neurodivergent individuals.
WHY? Because the feeling you get when you are operating from your Strengths is a natural antidote to the abundance of negative feedback neurodivergent people get for not “fitting into the norm”.
Strengths-based activities will pull you into focus, will help you slip into flow while you work, and they will generate dopamine because these are stimulating and motivating activities for you.
Strengths-based planning is the first powerful step in spending your time where you can have the most impact.
Strengths-based energy and time management is a foundational practice for people whose daily energy supplies are regularly drained by Executive Functioning Challenges. We cannot afford to play fast and loose with our time and energy…
Sure, in any job or relationship, there will be leftover chores that are not covered by anybody’s Strengths. But you can still use Strengths to divide those up and make them more attainable or manageable.
To train and do group work, or to fly solo, that is the question….
If you are interested in some other ways of doing Strengths Based work: check out the general page on this for offers on one-on-one coaching, or even an opportunity to work completely self-led using the toolkit I wrote with Lana Jelenjev for Neurodiversity Education Academy.
If, however, you are interested in doing this work in a small community for a focused period of time: here are the opportunities open for group training and coaching available this year.
I highly recommend doing the work in a group setting, as I find it extra motivating! And the buzz generated by a group of people connecting to what is strong in them is quite something! We often see a lot of people release some heavy shame-filled backpacks that they have carried with them over time about the deficits that come with their spiky profiles and neurodivergents brains. In exchange, they can fill their baggage with a better awareness of what makes them unique and lets them add value wherever they go.
What can I expect from this group training and coaching set-up?
The spring and fall options offer slightly different approaches but the basic structure is the same:
- Access to the online course materials. You can go at your own pace, but the easiest way to do it is to schedule about 30-60 minutes a week to keep up with the module covered in the following live session.
- Several live sessions to ask questions about the course, deepen your understanding of the exercises and the toolkit, and receive coaching.
- During the sessions, there will be opportunities for each participant in turn to get coached in a group setting on anything that might be getting in your way while you apply the learning in practice.
- In-between-session support from your fellow group members and your coach in the Slack group.
- Access to all the online course materials and the Slack group for an additional 3 months to catch up on missed materials.
- Permanent downloads of the toolkit and worksheets that are offered during the sessions.
Spring and Fall offerings
Spring Program-2024
- Starting in mid-May 2024 – live sessions on Monday evenings – time to be determined
- Live sessions 4x a month (total of 9 sessions)
- A bit more of a pressure cooker, moving through the course modules, exercises and applying the learning in the same week.
- All resources, exercises and basic concepts are covered in an Online training program.
- Access to online support from fellow group members and your coach in a closed medium & group like Slack.
- Open to all, also people not identifying as neurodivergent.
Fall Program-2023
- Starting in October 2023 – dates & session times to be announced
- Live sessions 2x a month (total of 8 sessions)
- Ample time for integrating the exercises and concepts in between sessions because of the slower pace
- All resources, exercises and basic concepts are covered in an Online training program.
- Access to online support from fellow group members and your coach in a closed medium & group like Slack.
- Added focus on supporting Neurodiversity and will serve the recipients of my coaching grant among other paying participants.
Enroll now!
I invite you to join me on at least 8 Sessions worth of exploration, and sign up for the Spring or Fall editions of this Strengths-Based group coaching and course! Will you join us? Book your Enrollment call here if you are ready to sign up
Not sure yet? Have more questions? Book a 15 minute coffee call to discuss options https://calendarhero.to/Coffee15
More details:
Still have more questions? Read on for more details
Extra coaching support is available!
Since I want to make sure you actually start to PRACTICE your Strengths Based habits, I’ve made several one-on-one coaching offers available to book alongside the group program. This can help you overcome some of the more personal barriers to applying your Strengths in better or different ways if you prefer more privacy.
You can choose to invest upfront in a Deluxe coaching package, or you can choose to book “as you go” coaching support. Investing upfront means huge savings on my normal one-on-one coaching prices!
But you can also decide “as you go’ what extra coaching support you might like!
Rules of Engagement
Because I want you to be clear on “the rules of engagement” Here are some of the permissions you’ll need to give to interact with others in the course and to enable us to learn from each other.
By signing up you commit to not missing more than 25% of group coaching sessions, and to treating each other with respect, kindness and respecting the privacy of the group coaching space.
Here is the Schedule for the upcoming Fall course
- Course – starting September 28th, 2023 with a kick-off and Q&A at 20:00 CET to help you navigate your first log-in to the online course and solve any issues you might have in accessing the course materials.
- Q&A and group coaching sessions every month on Monday at 20:30 CET
- October 2nd & 16th,
- November 6th & 20th,
- December 4th & 18th,
- January 8th & 22nd
- self-led Strengths deployment with the support of your peers
- plus any personal coaching you have signed up for
- Jan 29th 2024: Bonus group call & Graduation Ceremony
Want to enroll for this Spring ? Book your enrollment call!
I invite you to join me on 4 months of exploration, and sign up for the Fall 2023 edition of this Strengths-Based group coaching and course! Will you join us? Book your Enrollment call here if you are ready to sign up
Not sure yet? Considering the Spring Course? Or do you just have more questions? Book a 15-minute coffee call to discuss options https://calendarhero.to/Coffee15