Dive Deeper

An important distinction in coaching is empowered vs. disempowered:

• Empowered is when you feel energized & inspired to take action. You feel you have something you can do to change things. You’re juiced up about your goal.
• Disempowered is when you don’t feel like doing it, like it’s a burden or it’s trapping you. Or you feel full of complaint about the world, about other people. You feel like you’re failing and feel bad about yourself. Basically, it’s a feeling of victimhood: everything is a burden, people suck, I suck, there’s not much I can do about it all.

When you don’t feel motivated to do something, you’re feeling disempowered. If this is a common occurrence, you have a disempowered relationship to that something (to your task list, emails, your project, your boss, etc.).

With your client, you can help them to create an empowered relationship to whatever they’re feeling disempowered about:

• Email is an opportunity to connect with people I care about
• My tasks are an opportunity to create the meaningful change I want in the world
• My spouse cares deeply about me and their pain & complaint is an opportunity for me to listen to them and give them compassion
• My writing sessions are an opportunity to bring curiosity and love

What new empowered relationship can you help them create for themselves?

NEXT: What distinctions can we make?