The coaching tool I want to share this week is the ‘Line of Choice’, it’s a really simple and effective tool I was reminded of recently when I went to an evening at my school for stressed out parents… who knew how useful that was going to be!?
The line of choice is a behavioural model we can use to help us feel positive and in control. Draw a line across the middle of a piece of paper, above the line is space for ownership, accountability and responsibility. Below the line is about blame, negativity and resentment. When we’re below the line we start to make excuses and get carried away thinking about who’s fault it is, rather than how to solve it.
When we’re behaving above the line we respond better to situations. Some questions you could ask yourself to stay above the line might be:
- What is my responsibility here?
- What could I be doing differently?
- What would be a good outcome?
- What’s my role in this situation?
The tricky think about the line of choice is that we don’t always see when we’re falling into below the line thinking. It’s good to have this model printed out somewhere you can see it, or just draw it out yourself so you can keep your thinking in check before you start to spiral.
I hope that’s useful, please feel free to reply and let me know how you get on with it. If you find it a useful concept and you’d like some help thinking it through in a coaching session, I have some £99 one hour calls available next week, where we can talk through what this looks like for you and make a plan to keep you above the line. You can book into my diary for one of these calls here: https://calendly.com/lauraduggal/initial-call let me know in the comments what you’re booking in for and I’ll send you a link to payment and the call.
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I hope you’re staying safe and well at home, let me know how you’re doing and I’d love to know what information you think would be useful right now, so feel free to let me know.