Ursina Teuscher, PhD
Posted in Achieving Goals, Book Recommendations, Health Decisions, Intuition
Daniel T. Gilbert. Stumbling on Happiness.
This is my pick for the season: an entertaining and well-researched book about our failures to predict what will make us happy or unhappy in the future, and about how these misconceptions affect our decisions.
Ursina Teuscher, PhD
Posted in Achieving Goals, Coaching Practice, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management
A conversation about procrastination with Joseph Rhinewine, PhD, from Portland Mindfulness Therapy:
Ursina Teuscher, PhD
Posted in Coaching Practice
If you’ve been in my office, you already know that it has a great view, but no waiting room, let alone one with a fancy coffee machine.
However, I have the great fortune that some of Portland’s best coffee is being served right at the entrance of my very office building, at Spella Caffè. It’s a small European style coffee bar with extremely friendly staff. Apart from coffee and espresso drinks, they also have truly outstanding chai tea and hot chocolate. If you think I’m biased, you’re probably right, but check out their yelp reviews.
So here’s my new policy: whenever you find yourself a little early for an appointment with me, please get something delicious on my tab.
They know. They’ll take care of you.
Ursina Teuscher, PhD
Posted in Achieving Goals, Book Recommendations, Coaching Practice
At this point, there is quite a bit of research on this question, for example showing that coaching over the phone or through online channels can be very effective, that adequate rapport can be established between a counselor and client, and that some clients prefer the reduced stigma and easier access offered by online mental health services.
For more in depth discussion, this handbook addresses many practical aspects of online counseling, such as technological, ethical, legal and multicultural issues, treatment strategies, and testing and assessment:
While I do enjoy in-person meetings with clients, I often find that phone sessions can be even more focused and efficient. What I really like from the coach/counselor perspective is my freedom to take notes (writing, drawing graphs and charts to clarify my own thoughts while listening) without needing to worry about maintaining eye contact. Of course the client may do the same, which can also help. For me, video usually doesn’t add anything to the rapport or even simply the enjoyment of the session, however some clients feel differently, in which case video sessions can be a great option.
To sum up, phone or video coaching is a excellent alternative for those who care mostly about focus and efficiency, and less about the feel-good factor of the sessions. Of course, it’s also a great choice for anybody who is looking for a specialist they may not find locally. In my case, I have been very happy to work with people who did not find any coaches or counselors in their hometown with a similar background and focus on decision making or goal achievement.
If you have done any online coaching or counseling, either as a client or professional, I would love to hear about your experience.
Merlin Mann is advocating a lean process to deal with our flood of emails and become more productive: http://inboxzero.com/video.
The talk itself is 1/2 hour (~2:30-32:30), the rest is intro and Q&A.
The basic idea is to keep your Inbox empty and not spend time re-reading and re-considering emails without responding.
What I like about it is that you can apply the Inbox Zero principle to other tasks: get each new task out of your mind immediately by either getting it done right away, scheduling it, or deciding not to do it. In other words, get a system that helps you NOT think about any other tasks than the one you’re working on right now. This will reduce decision fatigue and help you focus.
“That Zero? It’s not how many messages are in your inbox – it’s how much of your own brain is in that inbox.”
— Merlin Mann
Ursina Teuscher, PhD
Posted in Achieving Goals, Book Recommendations, Career Development, Creative Thinking, Financial Decisions, Health Decisions, Strategic Planning, Business Decisions, Organizational Development
I was impressed with this new book by the Heath brothers, a very helpful guide to decision making. It does not offer any formal tools to evaluate options, but a process with powerful ideas that are easy to apply to any personal or business decision.
They call their approach the WRAP process, an acronym standing for (1) Widen your options, (2) Reality test your assumptions, (3) Attain some distance, and (4) Prepare to be wrong.
Here’s a sample of some ideas that I’m finding very effective with clients as well as for my own decisions:
For widening your options, they propose the “Vanishing Options Test”: what would you do if the current alternatives disappeared? This question forces us to think creatively, oftentimes bringing better solutions to mind than the ones that seemed most obvious at first.
Also, consider opportunity costs: if I didn’t do this, what else could I do with the same resources?
Always think AND, not OR. Can you follow multiple paths at once?
For attaining some distance, they suggest the simple but powerful question: “What would I tell my best friend to do in this situation?”
For preparing to be wrong, they introduce the idea of a “tripwire”: set a date or trigger for revisiting the decision. This will not only prevent you from getting stuck on a bad track, but it will give you a certain period where you will have the permission and peace of mind to fully commit to your current action plan, without tormenting yourself about whether this was a good decision or not.
Chip and Dan Heath also offer a great resources page on their website, with free cheat sheets and worksheets summarizing their process.
by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR
Ursina Teuscher, PhD
Posted in Career Development, Coaching Practice, Self-Assessments
Im my last post, where I discussed a free personality self-assessment, I promised to write more about self-assessments, in particular provide information about a test that is more geared towards career development.
Here is a website that offers several free career-oriented self-assessments and a neat way to explore information about hundreds of occupations: http://www.cacareerzone.org.
The interest profiler, for example, is based on the six Occupational Themes (developed by the psychologist John L. Holland). His idea assumes that people thrive most in career environments that fit their personality, and that jobs and career environments are classifiable in that way. The model classifies jobs and career along six occupational themes or “types”, and all the different combinations of those:
As an acronym of those themes, Holland’s model is sometimes also referred to as RIASEC. The interest profiler is a self-test that helps you figure out which three of those six themes are your strongest suits, and gives you suggestions for careers that require predominantly those skills and personalities.
Ursina Teuscher, PhD
Posted in Coaching Practice, Self-Assessments
My clients sometimes ask me if I could do a personality assessment with them. Although I don’t think that’s usually necessary, I understand that learning more about our own personality, and how we compare to other people, can be fascinating and may inform our choices. And the answer is yes, I can. But so can you, if you want.
We are living in a wonderful open-source age, where the best things (especially the most scientific things) may be free, if we know where to find them.
Here, for example, is a short version of the IPIP-NEO personality test:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/j5j/IPIP/ipipneo120.htm.
It looks at 5 broad dimensions (also known as the “Big Five” in the field of personality research), and 30 subdomains of personality. This short version has 120 items to complete. If you feel intrigued or ambitious, you can also do the original long version, which has 300 items: http://www.personal.psu.edu/j5j/IPIP/
These questionnaires fully rely on your own honesty and self-awareness, they do not claim to reveal any hidden, secret information.
A word of caution: When you look at your results, read the explanation of each dimension and sub-facet carefully. Some concepts (e.g., “morality”; “intellect”) are used differently than in our everyday language!
Coming up: I’ll review another free self-assessment soon – one that will be career oriented, based on Holland’s Occupational Themes.
Psychology Today also offers a free short version of the Big Five Personality Test.
Ursina Teuscher, PhD
Posted in Health Decisions, Intuition
“You never regret a swim.”
— Swedish Folk Wisdom
Ursina Teuscher, PhD
Posted in Achieving Goals, Book Recommendations
Gretchen Rubin. The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun.
Russ Harris (Author), Steven Hayes (Foreword). The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living.
On first sight, the two books appear to be on two opposite sides of the happiness controversy – should we pursue it or not? Should we strive to be happy, or is happiness only achievable as an indirect (and not guaranteed) consequence, or side-effect, of focusing on other worthwhile pursuits?
After reading both books, I find their opinions smart and differentiated enough to agree with both. Whether the authors would agree with each other, I don’t know…
Gretchen Rubin’s book is a delightfully honest, refreshing and funny report about a year-long “happiness project”. Although it is very easy to read, it also contains a lot of research and is packed with creative insights.
The “Happiness Trap” is starting from a very different place – it challenges the very assumption that we should strive for happiness. In Russ Harris’ view, trying to find happiness ends up making us miserable and lies at the bottom of many addictions, depressions, and anxieties.
Instead, his advice is to live in line with our values. Happiness may follow if we do that, or it may not, but that’s not the point.
I highly recommend both books, although “The Happiness Trap” may be more useful for people who struggle with depression or anxiety. People already living fulfilling lives in great mental health (to the extent that they exist :)) will get more entertainment and education out of Rubin’s “Happiness Project”.
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