Teaching Clients to Appreciate what’s Around Them

So here in America, we’re just coming off of one of our major holidays, which we refer to as Thanksgiving. And for Thanksgiving, we’re supposed to give thanks and show appreciation and think about the year we’ve just had. And I had a realization about the Solution Focused Approach that hit me. And I had never really realized this before, never thought about it in this way before.

But in Solution Focused Brief Therapy we’re always talking to our clients about noticing difference. We’re always talking to our clients about like, what would you notice when your life is moving in the direction in which you want it to go in? Or, or what would be the first sign that things are moving in the way that you’d be pleased by? But we’re always talking to clients about noticing clues. And I realized something as I was like in my own spirit of gratitude, that in order to talk about noticing, you first have to talk about valuing.

You first have to talk about appreciating because you can’t really notice something that you haven’t given value to. You can’t really notice something that you haven’t appreciated. You can’t really notice something that you haven’t like highlighted for yourself. Like here, it’s Christmas time, and as you can see, there are Christmas decorations popping up everywhere.

And I’m not someone who’s like super into Christmas decorations, but I just spent a lot of time around my business partner, Anna Francis, and she loves Christmas decorations, loves them. And we were taking a walk. She was like, oh, look at that over there. And ooh, look at that over there. And oh, look at that over there, because she kept noticing Christmas lights that I wouldn’t have noticed had she not pointed them out to me, because I don’t value them as much as she does. Like to her. This is a really big deal.

And I was thinking like we have to teach clients to value the Christmas lights in their life so they can be like, ooh, look at that sign, and ooh, look at that clue. And ooh, look at that thing over there. Because the more they can notice and pay attention to the things that are changing around them, then the more changes happen.

So that means the more they can value the small changes, the better. And the reason why it’s so important to value them that we use that language is because they’re such small clues often. They’re such small, seemingly insignificant things, but when you notice them and attend to them, they have a huge value and they’re transformative.

Just with spending that time on that walk with Anna, I’m never gonna not notice Christmas lights again. And in fact, we’re at a park here at like a shopping plaza and my cameraman said like, let’s meet at this plaza to film. And I didn’t even text him where I just knew he’s gonna want to be in this area.

And I parked my car right here. Then I text him, where are you, you? And he said, I’m right outside this park. And I knew because as I was driving here, I knew they’d have Christmas lights here, and now they’re just more on my mind than they would’ve been otherwise.

So when you’re working with your clients, understand that when we’re asking them to notice something, we’re actually asking them to value that something. We’re asking them to attend to that something, and we’re asking them to give meaning to that something because they can’t notice it if they don’t give value to it. So remember that lesson, it’s more than just what would you notice? But it’s how can I help you value those things so that you could notice it.