Coaching Tip: Independence and Connectedness

Coaching Tip: Independence and Connectedness - Finding a Balance

Category: Coaching Secrets (CS27)

Originally Submitted on 10/26/98.

Introduction

It is easy to waste time and energy moving back and forth between opposing needs as our moods change. How can we stop this waste?

The Coaching Tip

I am using the continuum between being independent and being connected with others as an example, but there are many other opposites on which we face similar problems.
Both independence and connectedness are desirable, but at extremes each tends to work against the other. You may find that clients tend to move back and forth on this, at one moment eager to be independent, at another yearning to be enfolded in a loving community. Then, feeling smothered, they push away and the cycle continues. Many of us spend time and energy on achieving goals in one direction, only to undo them when we feel a need to move back in the other.
Normal human beings have need for both independence and connectedness. To avoid the waste of effort as we move back and forth, we need to decide where we are most comfortable. Then we can work toward a lifestyle that encompasses the chosen levels of both. How much independence are we prepared to surrender in order to retain the support of our family or community? How much connectedness are we prepared to give up to pursue our independence and do our own thing?
There are no definite right or wrong standards to guide us, therefore these decisions often remain unmade.
The answers may be strongly affected by the "tribal ethic" of our family or community. As an addictions counselor I have seen people whose lives are endangered, but who are unable to work the recovery that they desperately desire, because they would have to separate
from unhealthy family members. Psychologists call such families "enmeshed." Another way to put it is, "If one person stubs her toe, the rest of the family limps for a month." In the opposite direction, there are families whose traditions may involve physical or emotional separation, greatly increasing independence but reducing the availability of support and connectedness.
Going against traditions that stem from early childhood may be extremely difficult. Yet, if we do not choose, we may spend our lives alternately seeking and then fleeing from opposing goals and lifestyles at either end of the dimension. The more extremely we approach one end, the more likely is a potentially disruptive rebound to the other.
A good place to start is with Coach University's Need-Less program. Even if you worked it when you first started coaching, another look may help to clarify where you stand on these two areas, or on any other pair of needs that directly compete with each other.

About the Submitter

This piece was originally submitted by Diana Robinson, Ph.D, who can be reached at Diana@ChoiceCoach.com, or visited on the web. Diana Robinson, Ph.D wants you to know: As a Personal & Career Coach I welcome the chance to work with people seeking to reconnect with their own strengths and their own authenticity, people who are seeking balance in their lives, and to whom inner, as well as outer, success is important. I offer a half-hour complimentary coaching call and a free twice-monthly e-mail newsletter. For more information see my web site.

This content may be forwarded in full, with copyright, contact, and creation information intact, without specific permission, when used only in a not-for-profit context. For other uses, permission in writing from CoachVille is required. Questions: email topten@coachville.com

Visitors:

Please use your browser controls to close this page & return to the selection page, or click to return to Top 10 home page.