Evolutionary Coaching
While counselling focuses on resolving or managing the major difficulties in our lives, coaching focuses on personal growth and pursuing and accomplishing our goals. Every coach uses a different approach; my approach specifically draws from evolutionary biology, psychology, and anthropology.
This approach starts with a basic idea: Human beings evolved over a two-million year period in small groups as hunter-gatherers. As a result, our bodies and minds were built to live with that kind of lifestyle in that kind of environment. Things start to go wrong for our bodies and minds (i.e. physical and mental health problems) when humans begin to adopt novel lifestyles and live in novel environments for which we are not well adapted.
Fortunately, humans also evolved the capacity to adapt to a wide range of novel lifestyles and environments. What this means, then, is that for humans to thrive, we must either find ways to adapt, or to modify our lifestyle and environment to be better suited to how humans were built–or some combination of both strategies.
Evolutionary coaching draws on the insights from the evolutionary sciences to help you understand the kind of being that you are and how your lifestyle and environment may be interfering with your goals and your ability to succeed. Focusing on the particular details of who you are and how you live, we will develop strategies to modify your lifestyle and environment (which usually has the effect of improving both your physical and psychological well-being). In other words, we will work to reduce as much as possible the often hidden factors that interfere with the pursuit of your goals.
At the same time, we will also develop and practice scientifically-supported strategies to better adapt yourself to all the features of modern life that humans did not evolve to deal with–including the (often self-destructive) temptations, the sources of anxiety and fear, the social pressures, and the rapid technological change. This two-pronged approach makes evolutionary coaching flexible to the needs, abilities, and personality of each individual client.
For more information about billing and how I offer my services, please read the “Services” page. If you are unsure about whether evolutionary coaching is right for you, please contact me for a free consultation or for more information.