The biggest mistakes that people make in divorce revolve around their own internal assumptions and beliefs which cause them to take actions which lead to the other big legal and financial mistakes in divorce.
Fixed versus Growth Mindsets
Once you have made up your mind about something, that is the way it is and you cannot see other options. Carol Dweck in her decades of research on mindset describes this a “Fixed” mindset. Dweck addresses the ways that mindsets have an impact on people. She explains that you can have a fixed mindset in regard to some traits and a growth mindset in regard to others. The thought-provoking insight comes from learning when you need to adjust your mindset to move ahead.
She explains in the book Mindset that the belief that desired qualities can be developed creates a passion for learning instead of always resorting to the tried and true and what you already know. People with a “growth” mindset look for ways to stretch themselves and this passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it even when it doesn’t go the way you want it to go is a hallmark of the “growth” mindset. It is this mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.
So from those limited options you see with a fixed mindset, you make your choice about what to do. You don’t see the whole picture when you are only focused on what you believe you know and this tunnel vision leads predictable pitfalls in your decision-making.
So the challenge in divorce is how can you help your client recognize when they are about to make one of these big mindset mistakes and help them to zoom out and see the bigger picture – to adopt a growth mindset?
The work of a Divorce Coach is to help the client see the consequences of adopting the “fixed” mindset with regard to choices they are making during the divorce process and help them to expand what they see as the options before making their final decision.
Some of the telltale signs are in the language the client uses. Phrases like “I just want to throw in the towel”. Or “I need guarantees in order to sign this agreement”; “I don’t care what it takes, this is what I want” or “I’ll just do what everyone is telling me to do” signal that the client is about to make a decision without looking at the bigger picture and the longer term impact of that decision.
We are happy to share our comprehensive 6 part program which gives you all of the pieces you need to provide effective and life-changing impact as a personal divorce coach.Classes run for 16 weeks and start in August, January, and May and are held by live webinar to make it accessible to anyone with access to the internet. Course participants come from as far away as Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, UK, across Canada, throughout the US and from Central and South America.
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