Wayfinding Coaching
--Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton
Wayfinding is a version of Life Story Coaching that uses the idea of changing our stories to change behavior. What stories do we tell ourselves and what stories do we tell others?
As individuals and groups, we understand the world through a collection of stories. What we believe is how we act. In groups, our shared stories are a critical part of culture. For individuals, our stories are a critical part of our culture. For individuals, our stories are key parts of our identity.
One way to think about stories are as mental maps, what psychologists refer to as "schemas." Our mental map is our understanding of how the universe works. It describes what we see as good and what is bad. It includes logic models that describe how we expect the universe to respond when we act.
Human beings are not computers. We do not record facts as data. We record stories in the form of memories. Even when the specific memory of when we first learned what a dog is, we store the idea of what a dog is as a story.
Research shows that learning a series of nonsense words is much harder that memorizing words that have meaning. Learning new languages is best when immersed in the language versus memorizing vocabulary. We are wired for stories.
Stories make sense of our past. Stories create out future. Stories influence others.
We cannot change the past, only how we understand it. Stories are the tool that allow us to do this revision. We can use writing to learn from the past, and sometimes unlearn what we believe to find a new truth that helps us move forward.
These two stories are examples I have created from my own experience. They provide background on me, which is hopefully helpful in thinking about how I might be able to help you, but more importantly demonstrate examples of using your life story to learn from your experiences.
I have developed my own process of wayfinding coaching which helps clients figure out where they want to go and how to get there. If you would like to learn more, please schedule an initial consultation. The only investment to get started is your time.