Mastering Cognitive Shift: What Pictionary Can Teach Us About Changing Perspective

Are people still playing Pictionary?

Have you ever been in this situation? To save time, advance to minutes 1:00 - 1:37. To save even more time, I’ll explain.

Have you ever been playing Pictionary, and your teammate draws the same picture over and over? No one is guessing correctly, but the artist persists in frantically circling and pointing at their drawing?

Or maybe you check your bag for your phone 32 times because even though your bag isn’t ludicrously capacious (shout out Tom Wambsgans), you may have missed it somehow.

Being able to change gears and redirect your attention is called cognitive shift. Sometimes it takes more effort than others.

Recently, I've been dealing with cognitive shift a lot because of the switch from being a therapist to being a coach. Instead of asking clients, "How does that make you feel," I now ask them, "How can that help guide your decision?" It's not easy to transition from a healing role to a partnering one.

One technique that coaches borrow from therapists is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), although it’s more aptly referred to as cognitive behavioral coaching (CBC). The theory behind the approach is that if we change the way we think about something, we can change our behavior. For instance, if we think our phone is in our car, we’ll stop looking in our bag.

When we are struggling to change our thinking, and thus, course of action, this is referred to as a blind spot. Coaches can be helpful at pointing out a client’s blind spots so they can brainstorm other possibilities and identify other pathways to success. Hence, coaches are generally Pictionary virtuosos.

TO READ MORE, SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK