When Following the Science is Not Enough

When it comes to the study of human motivation, those who remain fixated on 'following the science' are likely to be disappointed.

In today's podcast, Bill argues that the power of life coaching lies in its ability to recognise and harness concepts that cannot be neatly explained in scientific terms. As he implies, the secret to living the life you love requires acceptance that there is a certain 'magical ' element to life. 

Transcript

When following the science is not enough


I love what I do.

There is nothing more fulfilling than seeing and hearing about the empowering effect that life coaching – and the study and practice of life coaching – has on people from all walks of life.

I am privy to so many inspiring stories of change, growth,  development, and accomplishment that happen as a result of life coaching or the process involved in learning and practising the art of becoming a life coach.

So you might imagine that it came as a bit of a shock to receive a long and quite damning critique about various aspects of our life coach training programme.

More of a surprise

I got even more of a surprise when I realised that the author of the critique was a certified life coach, having completed the  New Insights training nearly two years previously.

Pseudo science, or …?

The main argument was that certain parts of the theory were not adequately founded on established wisdom backed by scientifically proven facts.

The message closed with the author encouraging me to simply reflect on the implications of the content and not to bother to respond (as the email they used to send the message was not regularly monitored).

An external influence, perhaps?

How ironic that someone could go to all the trouble to complete what is an extensive training programme, giving great feedback along the way, only to find fault with it long after qualifying. It aroused my suspicion that the author had been swayed by some external influence.

A reasoned response required

I pored over the author’s various rather vague references to parts of the theory (they claimed to have lost the material and to be commenting from memory).

After careful thought, I decided that, whether or not it would be received or read, the message demanded a reasoned response.

Glaring inaccuracy

The most glaring inaccuracy in the critique was a generalised  claim of “passing the course off as containing factual, scientifically sound material.”

This is simply not true.

We go to some lengths to encourage trainee life coaches to reach their own conclusions about many of the ideas and concepts we present. Our only request is to maintain an open mind and try to refrain from rejecting anything out of hand without due reflection and discussion.

“Take what resonates and leave the rest” as we like to say.

Of the heart, not the head

Life coaching is, as I often state, a career of the heart, not the head. The study of human motivation is much less an academic pursuit than, for example, the study of engineering.

Life coach training material should never be presented as some form of academic treatise. Doing so would deprive it of the ‘heart’ of which I speak.

New Insights training material is extensive, covering a great many topics. For us to state that it is restricted to a discussion of concepts derived from scientifically proven facts, would be totally inappropriate and misguided.

Human motivation

Life coaching is all about human motivation. Life coaches work with esoteric concepts such as attitudes, needs, beliefs, values, rules, projection, personal responsibility, life purpose, and so on.

Beliefs, by their very definition, cannot be facts. The concept of values, or what really matters, is subjective and unique to each individual. Accepting personal responsibility for one’s life is a mindset issue. And the concept of life purpose, though hugely motivational, is clearly not rooted in scientific fact.

Tunnel vision

As I pondered how to word my response, it struck me that many people seem to have tunnel vision when it comes to ‘following the science’, as if science itself were not changing, developing and evolving!

Science, of course, has a critically important place in our lives. Much of what goes to make our lives more liveable, enjoyable and civilised can be traced to breakthroughs in scientific understanding and application.

And yet there are a great many things that science, as yet, cannot explain.

Unscientific?

At a macro level, observations by the James Webb telescope are starting to call into question the so-called Big Bang Theory about the origin of the Universe and life as we know it.

And at the quantum level, science struggles to explain the apparent dual wave/particle nature of sub-atomic matter. Intriguing experiments have shown that sub-atomic particles do something seemingly unscientific and change their behaviour when observed.

Two sides of the same coin?

It is hugely compelling to accept that, instead of being separate from science and the laws of physics, God, spirituality, or some alternative force, operates in parallel with science. Or perhaps we are yet to discover that they are two sides of the same coin?

Life coach training is most certainly not anti-science. Much of what we teach has its basis in science and psychology research.

But there is also much of what we teach that relies on concepts that would be considered to lie in the realm of spirituality, such as the existence of an ‘inner being’, intuition, the existence of the subconscious mind and its connection to an infinite repository of knowledge, and so on and so forth.

An element of magic

In 2010, as a tribute to life coaching and life coaches, I wrote a book called A Boerewors Roll for the Soul - Awaken to the magic of the life you love. 

I won’t go into the reason for the quirky title here, although South Africans will quickly get it! But consider the subtitle. The use of the word ‘magic’ is done deliberately, for good reason.

Not everything we do in life coaching and human motivation can be neatly explained in scientific terms. There is undoubtedly an an element of mystique – magic if you prefer – that is involved.

To be a life coach you need to develop self awareness, maintain a powerful connection to self and keep an enquiring and imaginative mind, open to alternative ways of thinking and exciting possibilities. 

In that way, you get to unlock the magic that undoubtedly exists all around us!