We are pleased to share an article entitled “Coaching the Inner Climate to Support Outer Change ~ A framework for change from the inside out “ written by Ryan Grist.
It’s not that we don’t know what to do to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change; the problem is, we are struggling to change ourselves to meet the scale and complexity of the crisis.
For decades, global climate efforts have focused on external solutions, such as technologies and policies to reduce emissions and improve the health of land, air and water. These are essential, but alone they are not enough.
As coaches, we know that identifying the problem, brain- storming solutions and creating a plan of action are only part of the change process. Turning ideas into meaningful action often requires internal shifts in self-awareness, mindset and beliefs. For humanity to meet the external challenge of climate change, inner development goals are needed.
In 2015, the United Nations assembled a comprehensive blueprint for a healthy planet called Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs framework outlines 17 goals for tackling climate change and inequality simultaneously. Each goal has targets for stepwise implementation and hundreds of recommended actions.
While the SDGs offer an ambitious plan for widespread change, implementation continues to fall short due to human limitations. Leaders and innovators are beginning to recognize this. A group of such individuals developed a framework called Inner Development Goals (IDGs), which outlines five development areas and 23 inner skills needed to enact the SDGs and climate initiatives more broadly.
As an open-source initiative, the IDG framework is available to everyone to utilize and adapt to fit the needs of their unique sector. I’ve adapted five areas and skills to demonstrate how coaching can make a significant impact on climate change. I’ve outlined them below in a framework I call Inner Climate Change.
1. STABLE SELF
Self-awareness is essential for effective and sustainable action in the world. It empowers individuals to take leadership of their inner landscape – the mind, body and heart. Without self-awareness, individuals risk getting swept into emotional reactivity and losing track of their ability to act with clarity and integrity. As the climate crisis deepens, one’s ability to stay present, self-regulated and grounded in their values in difficult circumstances will become increasingly important to pushing through barriers to change that arise in organizations, communities, and everyday life.
Leaders, change-makers, parents, friends, and citizens with the skills to clear their mind, track their body sensations, and connect to their heart will be the foundation for the transformation of consciousness needed to tackle the global crisis of climate change.
Inner Skills: self-awareness, self-regulation, inner compass, authentic action, integrity.
2. ADAPTIVE MIND
In leadership and life, clear thinking is required for good decision making, and good decision making is essential for navigating difficult change. The complexity and scale of the climate crisis can easily push the human brain into a reactive and overwhelmed state that reduces critical, creative and long-term thinking capacity.
Coaches can make an impact on climate change by facilitating mind training in their clients to increase critical thinking capacity, hold a more expansive long-term perspective, and enhance their clients’ ability to consider multiple perspectives and recognize the interconnectedness of all issues. An adaptive mind that is flexible, self-reflective and emotionally regulated will be crucial for the clear and ambitious thinking needed to solve the climate crisis.
Inner Skills: critical thinking, complexity awareness, perspective skills, meaning-making, long-term orientation, visioning.
3. CONNECTED HEART
Climate change tests the resilience of the human spirit. As wars break out, food shortages and droughts spread, floods and fires wipe out communities, and heat waves stress our internal organs, survival instincts are driving people to turn against each other. Navigating the climate crisis will require leaders, parents, citizens and community members who have an unshakeable belief in the best qualities of the human spirit, despite our darker tendencies to turn toward hatred and violence.
Neuroscience research shows that compassion and gratitude practices enhance personal well-being and increase sense of connectedness to others. Coaches can make an impact by supporting clients in developing their compassion for self and others, their sense of connectedness to all living beings, and their support systems and community spaces that serve to fortify a deep conviction in the goodness of the human spirit.
Inner Skills: appreciation, connectedness, humility, empathy, compassion.
4. INCLUSIVE COLLABORATOR
The ingenuity of the human species is our ability to collaborate at scale. The global nature of climate change makes it clear that widespread collaboration will be essential for enacting comprehensive solutions. Leadership styles grounded in the principle of co-creation will be important to successful and sustainable collaboration.
Coaching can model to clients how to guide and co-create effective change. Additionally, coaching can support clients in developing the communication skills, inclusive and collaborative mindset, trust, and willingness to resign control that will be necessary for collaboration and co-creation across differences.
Inner Skills: communication skills, co-creation, inclusive and intercultural mindset, trust, shared purpose.
5. COURAGEOUS CHANGE-MAKER
The societal transformation that climate change requires of humanity will take nothing less than courage, creativity, optimism and perseverance. These four inner skills rest upon the preceding four dimensions of change: a grounded self, a clear mind, an open heart, and a co-creative orientation that invites others in.
Enabling change will require challenging the status quo, thinking creatively to innovate new ways forward, sustaining a sense of possibility when change feels impossible, and perseverance to stay committed long-term. Coaches can support their clients’ ambitions to be courageous change-makers by encouraging self-care and social support. The more inner resources our clients have, the greater the possibilities for outside change.
Inner Skills: courage, creativity, confidence, perseverance.
Humanity needs guides, light-holders, perspective-shifters, and leaders that draw out the innate strengths of the species and create possibilities for hope where it seems that there are none. Meeting the challenges of the climate crisis will require nothing less than a shift in consciousness that breaks through the economic, social, political and cultural barriers that are slowing change.
Coaches are exceptionally equipped to make an impact on the inner work of climate change by supporting leaders, change-makers, professionals, community leaders and concerned citizens in developing the five inner skills of self-awareness, mental resilience, collaboration, compassion and the ability to inspire action.
The adapted framework I provided here, inspired by the IDGs, suggests a roadmap for coaches to connect the work they do with clients to the inner skills needed to tackle climate change. Coaches should consider themselves as climate change agents, well-positioned to make an impact on one of the most important issues of our time.
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