The power of extending your mind to lower stress and increase performance
Genna Clark 
We all use an extended mind to manage our life and career already, whether we realise it or not. Investing intentionally is key to managing to lead.
Coaching can be many things to different people.
But there is one key benefit to all styles: The Extended Mind.
We all use an extended mind to manage our life and career already, whether we realise it or not.
It can look like:
🧠 Lists
🧠 Schedules
🧠 Team meetings
🧠 Project management tools
🧠 Journalling
🧠 Time blocking for specific tasks
🧠 Peer inputs
🧠 Bookmarks
🧠 Post-It notes
🧠 Every document we ever created
🧠 Support from others, like VAs or PAs
🧠 Collaboration and teamwork with peers
🧠 Writing down passwords (although, of course none of us does that!)
All are techniques that help you extend the capability and capacity of your mind, and they can be invaluable at all times, but particularly when we are stressed or overwhelmed.
Adding coaching into the mix can help you to extend your mind in a supercharged way because you are drawing on the resources of your coach as well as your own; or in a group coaching environment you get a pack of brains to extend into!
Reportedly, Einstein couldn't recall his own phone number. He rationalised it by saying "Why should I memorize something I can so easily get from a book?”
He believed our brains had finite capacity, and so he chose to use, prioritise and organise his, wisely.
Do you remember the days when there was a visual representation of your PC defragmenting? (Or am I just really showing my age...?)
The files would be organised in fragmented colourful rows, and in the defragment process they would appear to move into a more ordered line-up, making a lot more space than was evident before.
I always felt reassured that my laptop would work so much more efficiently when it was done - although have no idea if the visual representation was just a pacifier to make me feel better that my computer was going to be running incredibly slowly for a while.
But the principle is the same.
When clients come to coaching, they very often turn up with cluttered and busy minds.
This is especially common in coaching for those experiencing incredibly demanding schedules, meeting-heavy culture, or overwhelm, whether they are managers or executives.
Through non-directional coaching, people gain renewed ability to order their own thoughts, behaviours, emotions and priorities.
Using your extended mind and tapping into coaching as one of those sources of support can also empower you to:
🔥 Open your mind to move past your biases and be open to other perspectives
🔥 Increase your processing capacity
🔥 Lead and show up intentionally
🔥 Always hold the long-game and your purpose in your vision and strategy
🔥 Get curious about other sources of wisdom, beyond what is in your brain - yes, I'm talking about intuition and body wisdom, amongst other things!
🔥 Build resilience
🔥 Unlock creativity and innovation... to name just a few.
Every day, clients say things to me like: "I'm not even sure how, but I feel so much clearer, calmer and more motivated about what's next for me."
Or, "I always feel so much better and more confident about what to focus on, after our sessions."
👉 What is one resource, practice or technique to extend your mind that you could experiment with, this week?
What difference could being more intentional about this make for you?
If coaching isn't for you right now, then journalling can help you to begin to unravel your thoughts and build your awareness of what's really going on.
Externalising your thoughts and mental load can be incredibly powerful in giving you the mental space you need for fresh insight.
As the saying goes: "You can't read the label when you're inside the jar."