Coaching for Autistic Individuals

Autistic individuals find it difficult to fit into society - it is not tailored to their specialised needs. They therefore require support services that are tailored to assist them in daily tasks to function better. For autistic individuals careers and relationships can be very complicated and difficult to understand. The coach needs to know how to effectively communicate and integrate with the unique learning methods of autistic individuals.

Some of the areas where many autistic individuals require support are the following:

• Developing skills to organise and focus
• To overcome hurt and to become motivated
• Helping to overcome communication difficulties
• Choosing a career path
• Assistance to create goals
• General planning for the future
• Assistance in solving problems
• Assistance in bridging various gaps
• Assistance to find solutions for environmental challenges
•  Assistance to make sense of concepts that are difficult to understand
• Guidance in building a support network
• Establishing and maintaining (business and personal) relationships
• Guidance about rules in different environments and social structures
• Deal with attention issues, frustrations and difficulties
• Recognise the joys of autism, strengths, talents and positive qualities
• Assisting in striving towards aspirations, as well as setting and achieving goals

Autism does not disappear, it is a life-long journey of learning and improvement. Autistic individuals may greatly benefit from an advisor who can help them break monumental challenges and aspirations into easy to accomplish goals.

Perceptions

An interesting perception of reality, from a short story "Bullet in the brain": A literary critic standing in the queue at the bank, suddenly became a victim of a bank robbery.

He didn't seem afraid at all. In fact, linguistically, the events that followed were so hilarious to him that he couldn't help commenting out loud and later exploding into laughter. Soon enough the bank robber lost his patience and shot him.

Even as the bullet traveled into his brain – in a last highly detailed memory flash he discovers a quaint literary gem he missed in childhood. He dies in awe.

Intending to make it happen?

A few imaginative suggestions can go a long way in getting thoughts put into ACTION. It is a bit like preparing one’s mind for the possibilities - envisioning a variety of tasty ‘recipes’ for making things happen.

Focus

You could think of your thoughts as keys to achieving the intentions you have. Take time to consider your intentions. Focus a large portion of your thoughts on the subject of your intent. The more familiar you are with the territory, the better will the outcome of your efforts be. The clearer you are, the more likely it is that you’ll stay on track. By rethinking your intentions, you will be able to purify and improve upon it - add onto it with the benefit of new experience you gain each day. This focus is about now, now is the continuum between thoughts and results.  The moment you step up to the dream, is the moment the dream is getting real.

Talk

Say what you want to do, to be, to have...  What you say can have a way of motivating you. It plants the seeds of your intent in you and those who listen to you. Talking to someone also serves as a sound board, making you aware of your valuable, insightful thoughts – some of which you never knew existed. Or those thoughts may have been created during a conversation. Notice whether the way you talk is constructive, this helps you to notice whether your thoughts are constructive.

Learn

Find a variety of your favourite avenues for learning. Gain all the necessary skills and knowledge needed to succeed.  While you learn and practice, spur yourself on with a double dose of belief that you can do it, and you will push through those valleys and plateaus to reach the top. You can keep your energy levels high by incorporating something fun and by assuring yourself that you are doing well, and bring back thoughts about your intent. Incorporate your whole being into the learning and make sure that you stretch yourself but do it gently, a bit further every day.  

Grow

Developing confidence means that what you are learning and doing becomes your second nature. It feels natural and real – your hard work pays off in the form of a set of hardcore skills and the ability to apply your knowledge well.  Begin with the easy stuff and gradually move towards more difficult things – rinse and repeat. What’s hard today is easy tomorrow. Make the process of growing enjoyable for yourself. Be generous with praising and appreciating yourself for your efforts. Keep finding motivation.  Keep in mind that you are growing, so every day the ‘new you’ gets smarter and smarter.  

Monitor

By monitoring your progress, you learn to trust your own judgement. Find ways to monitor yourself which will help you to see how much you have developed. This helps you to make decisions about what would be the next step. You might even notice a need to change direction or to adjust your strategy in some or other way.  Although feedback from others can be very useful, you also need to know for yourself where you are at in the process of acting out your intentions.

Take it on

This is what you wanted. Can you feel it in every inch of your body?  This is the mindset needed to keep you going! Consciously grow, adopt a good attitude and nurture motivational thoughts – eventually it becomes subconscious and automatic. All else will follow. Share your enjoyment and the love for what you do with those around you and get others involved with what you are doing.  Remind yourself that you are busy realising something that is important to you. 

Golden Grid - first draft

Before doing any design, I create a 'pre-design', which consists of different compositions of rectangles which have ratio aspects of the golden ratio. So I started thinking that it would be nice to have a standard one that I can simply place over the work area and it is ready to work on.

By the way, using the Golden Ratio helps one to create a well balanced design. I use it in all my work, from logos to websites. It can be placed on the borders of the work-area or even overlapping the work-area, if you have items that are only half-way on the page. You can add as many grids onto a design as you want, and can place a smaller one over a big one, or place a larger one behind, fitting onto any of the lines of that grid. You can also just keep it on the side to determine heights and widths of fonts, margins and any objects on a page.

Here's the first draft of my golden grid:

The grid can also be used in a ratio such as 2:1 like this:

Positive feedback loop

A positive feedback loop doubly affects the expected outcome of your efforts! The result, whether good or an outright achievement further encourages you. This can also be called a continuous self-improvement loop.

Here are two types of feedback loops:

Achievements: Achievements that arise from external events. The nature of achievements can vary considerably. For example, a minor achievement might result from a minor fortunate co-incidence. Larger achievements may result from understanding what is required for reaching an objective. When in this positive loop, one is able to remain focussed and keep working with few breaks and remain interested in achieving an objective. The key for success is being meticulous, methodical and attentive, taking notes for later reference, and looking for gaps in one's proposed solutions.

Self-improvement stems from internal factors such as developing a good fit for reaching an objective. Through a positive feedback loop, the resulting self-improvement may include being more confident, patient, interested, relaxed and understanding what is really important to focus on to reach an objective.

Develop a positive feedback loop that will help you achieve the following:

• continuous self-improvement
• continuous higher degrees of success
• more easily getting started and reaching objectives
• continuous increase in the likelihood of success
• continuous increase in common sense
• continuous increase in shrewdness
• continuous increase in constructive activity
• continuous increase in initiative
• more and more enthusiasm
• more and more encouraged
• self-empowerment

A positive feedback loop has a ‘snow-ball’ effect, so get one going and watch it grow!

How to be happy...

Keep life, as much as possible, based on experiences, rather than ideas. An awareness of the experience of being alive in the present will make you thrive!

Meditation and yoga are good ways to develop the faculty of remaining aware of the present moment.

Also, create helpful, happy, loving metaphors for the way you think about your life. Thinking patterns establish and reenforce neural pathways. Change any unhelpful metaphors like "if only..." to helpful ones... Your brain remains plastic throughout your life and the patterns it maintains can be changed at will.

It's never too late to learn new things, have new experiences, appreciate what you have, enjoy the wonder and the love.Live presently in every moment of life.

Working outdoors

People who work outdoors remind me of the flowers and trees - using the environment directly to provide services to those around them. All day out and about, feeling sun, rain and wind and interacting with the passersby. Here are some of the photos I have taken of people who work outdoors...