Mindset Coaching with Visual Thinking using MURAL digital workspaces
Seeing is NOT believing. Believing IS seeing. As the saying goes, you see things not as they are but as you are. For coaches, technology is testing the limits of these words as we now can use highly interactive digital whiteboards such as MURAL to co-create in-session visual thinking reflective spaces with our clients/thinkers. Working from Paivio’s hypothesized Dual Coding Theory as a frame of reference, when thinkers dance with incisive questions that illuminate both visual and verbal processing at the same time, powerful resonance chambers are created where believing AND seeing become one.
These visually collaborative conversations begin much the same way we hope a regular session might go: with a clean canvas and some curious minds. Questions follow a traditional path; the coach may draw out (now more than just metaphorically) what they are hearing on that formerly clean slate, or the client may find a picture or an icon that gives shape to a relationship between another icon or picture. Mental models such as timelines, Venn circles or hierarchies are introduced to assist in the organization of visual relationships. Collaboration, which has a multiplier effect on the conversation continues, but now in this multimodal way, not only with auditory and visual means, but also in tactile and kinesthetic ways.
Collaboration, which has a multiplier effect on the conversation continues, but now in this multimodal way, not only with auditory and visual means, but also in tactile and kinesthetic ways.
Then, like any generative coaching session, at some point, something insightful happens. The difference now is that it is truly in-sight-ful. At this moment, the client may see before them what was once a nebulous amalgam of energy swirling in that liminal space between their heart and mind. What they were once only believing, thinking, or feeling is now right before their eyes potentially allowing for enhanced perspective-taking or increased integration of awareness. Visual thinking as a tool for this kind of reflection-on-action is dynamic. Now, as clients gain clarity in truly seeing themselves as they are, they can then play with the notions of how they aspire to be, as well.
This kind of visual thinking as an experimental reflection-in-action allows the client to move ideas around or change the color or size of what they picture, merely to ‘see’ how it feels at both a visual and visceral level. When we imagine the future in our mind’s eye, we picture it. When we can use our whole sense-making self in the here-and-now to create and manipulate what we desire to see, we are one step closer to achieving it.
Finally, the reverberations of the session continue beyond the session because the thinker leaves with a tangible ARTifact assisting in the integration of learning and purposeful development. In this co-created experience, the thinker is empowered by what they see and how they see it. They still see things as they are, but with more awareness around who they are and who they are becoming.
Learn more about how you can use Visual Thinking with Virtual Tools with your clients, click on the link or connect with me for workshop dates.
