How psychological distance can help you coach yourself
What happens when you have a problem to solve or a decision to make? Do you ruminate? Avoid thinking about it? Ask those around you for their advice? Go with your gut? Often, when faced with a problem or decision, we’re too close to the situation. Of course we are! It’s our problem or decision (or maybe someone else’s problem that has become our problem, but that’s for a different time…).
It might sound impossible to create distance from a situation when it’s our own, but the good news is, it’s not. That’s where self-coaching comes in, and to self-coach, we need psychological distance.
What is psychological distance?
Psychological distancing is a technique we can use to step away from a situation, emotion, or event in order to gain perspective. It allows us to move back physically, mentally, or emotionally, assess the issue, and decide on a course of action while being less influenced by the potentially high emotions of the moment.
Psychological distance allows us to zoom out from the small picture so that we can see events and experiences as part of a larger process (life!). It allows us to create space between us and the people, events, and emotions around us and inside of us.
Think about a time in your life that was really stressful. It was probably more stressful when it was happening and less stressful after some time has passed, so that’s temporal distance. But we don’t always have time to wait for our emotions to fade and perspective to take root. By practicing psychological distancing, we’re trying to get to the less stressed version of ourselves that has some perspective quicker, so we can be our own coaches.
While someone has probably told you to “just gain a little perspective” before, it’s easier said than done. It takes practice! So how can we start?
How can I create psychological distance?
I’ll be honest: it’s not easy to create psychological distance. It’s a bit like meditation. No one is going to sit down their first time and meditate perfectly for an hour. Our backs hurt. Thoughts worm their way into our brains. Worries continually drift by when we try to visualize a blank, blue sky.
When we try to create psychological distance, fear, stress, impostor syndrome, the expectations of others, and our past experiences will loom. So don’t worry if your first few attempts don’t create the perfect self-coaching environment you’d hoped for.
The good news is, like meditation, even if you do it “wrong,” you still benefit. There’s no downside to taking time to explore your thoughts and emotions, practice psychological distancing, and dedicate some energy to supporting yourself and your self-care or growth.
Here are a few ways to create psychological distance that you can try:
Imagine you are coaching a different person
Visualize a friend or coworker and picture them having your problem. What would you say to them? How would they (you) respond to the coaching questions? If it’s too close to picture a friend or coworker, create more social distance and visualize a stranger to create that distance between your problem and yourself.
Create temporal distance
Think about how you would judge the situation a year from now. If you’re trying to make a decision or you’re stressed about a deadline, would you be happy with your decision a year from now? Did the deadline you were stressed about matter as much as you thought? We’re not trying to minimize our emotions. Your stress is totally valid! But when we’re close to a problem, we get in the weeds. When we create temporal distance, we can visualize the outcome, almost like we’re looking at something that has already happened.
Imagine a different person is coaching you
Instead of you coaching a friend or stranger, visualize a stranger or an older, wiser you from the future coaching you. You could think of a supportive teacher from your childhood, a mentor you still have, or make up a completely new person.
Speak to yourself in the second or third person
You can ruminate in your own head, but if you speak to yourself out loud and write your answers down, it gets you out of your head and into the real world and it’s a great way to create psychological distance. I always ask myself my coaching questions out loud in at least the second person and it sounds like it’s coming from somewhere else instead of my own head (I’m sure my cats love it).
My personal method of creating psychological distance is a combination of methods where I have a fake head-coach who speaks to me in the second person. She’s like an older, cooler version of me, so I know that she’s invested in my future, but she’s not trying to manipulate me, because she’s already done everything I’ve done, so my decisions are still mine to make in the present. The way you create psychological distance is ultimately up to you.
These methods might sound simple or silly, but in reality, they’re not easy to do effectively. It’s not actually easy to genuinely pretend you’re talking to someone else. It’s not easy to create temporal distance and actually visualize how you would react to a situation if time had passed.
It’s often very frustrating when someone else tells you to “get some perspective” or “things aren’t that bad” or “just think about how you’ll look back on this in a year.” Those throwaway statements want to shortcut to the effects of psychological distance without the work of getting to that state. To truly get into the mental state of psychological distance takes some practice, which is why mindfulness is so important.
How to approach your self-coaching session mindfully
Take the first few minutes and create your psychological distance
You’re not just closing your eyes and pretending you’re talking to a friend. Again, it’s almost like meditation. We want to get to like a higher plane of existence and really immerse ourselves in the visualization, especially if there are emotions involved like sadness, anger, or fear. In order to help us, our coach-self can’t be feeling those emotions.
You could create true physical distance by moving to a different physical location, especially one that doesn’t cause you stress, to do your self-coaching. If you’re feeling emotional, do some breathing exercises. I have a quick meditation that I use to clear my head in between tasks and it’s super useful for creating a clean slate before self-coaching sessions.
If you’re going to create a head-coach or a stranger who’s going to talk to you, really imagine them. What do they look and sound and smell like? What is their reaction when you say things? Where are they sitting and in what position? Where are you in relation to them? Creating a completely new scenario in your head and visualizing the details will help you create the psychological distance you need.
Be open and honest with yourself
I think freewriting is the most effective way to self-coach, but don’t use your fancy notebook. Or if you do use a fancy notebook, you can’t be one of those people who is afraid of “messing up” a notebook (I am currently in recovery for this). Get a piece of scrap paper of even junk mail. Tear it up after. Or burn it! No one is going to see this. You don’t even have to be able to read it yourself afterward (sometimes, I’ll write with my eyes closed to stay truly in the moment). The acts of thinking, speaking out loud (if you choose), and writing are most important. Ask yourself hard questions and give yourself honest answers.
Don’t worry about what you “should” do
This is the reason we create psychological distance, so there’s no should, no judgement, and no preconceived ideas of what we’re supposed to do with our lives. We’re ignoring outside forces and figuring out what’s inside. You can think about real-world pros and cons, but what we’re trying to get to is the uninfluenced core of what we want.
I did a lot of self-coaching when I was starting my business. I thought people weren’t going to take me seriously, I wasn’t a real business owner if I still worked part-time, and that people were going to think I was messing around and that I should get a real job. But through self-coaching, I finally asked myself: Who are these faceless people? Has anyone actually said that to me? If they did, would I care? No. I was making up “shoulds” that were influencing my behavior.
Once we have gotten ready for our self-coaching session and created psychological distance, we’re ready to go through the framework
I first started writing and teaching about self-coaching because I was talking to someone about how I use Commcoterie’s peer coaching framework to self-coach and they were like, “I didn’t know you could coach yourself!” Obviously it’s great to call upon the expertise of a professional coach to help us find our way forward when we’re stuck—but we don’t always have the time or the money! If I’m having a bad day or struggling through a problem, I can’t just pause the world and talk to a coach; I have to figure out how to cope on my own. So that’s what self-coaching is about.
I like to let my mind stay loose, a bit like a daydream, and let the answers to the questions rise to the surface like bubbles in a lake. The questions we use are the same ones we use in our peer coaching conversations in the Commcoterie community, so you can check out this post about how the peer coaching works or this post about how I use the framework on myself to get started. Happy self-coaching!
Want to learn more about psychological distancing and other coaching communication techniques?
Register for our next Coaching Culture Roundtable roundtable, a free virtual strategy session for leaders, managers, HR teams, and anyone who wants to integrate coaching tools into their team communication.
Each month, we gather to talk about how your teams can use coaching tools in their everyday conversations so everyone at your organization can adopt a coaching mindset. You’ll walk away with communication techniques you can start using right away so that you can transform your culture into something worth talking about.