Trust and truth: what can we control?

I was thinking about this recently on April Fool’s Day, and I was hoping to find a good example of this time-honoured tradition. I was looking forward to it, as I enjoy the fun of it, and so I looked confidently in The Guardian.

Over the years, they have been reliable suppliers of pretty decent April Fool spoofs, so I fully expected to find a good one. Would it be as imaginative as the one about the Spaghetti harvest in Italy, where they warned us that prices were going to shoot up, so we’d better get in a good supply of our favourite spaghetti? Alas, no. I could find nothing in that trusty paper. So I shrugged my shoulders and went on with my day. 

What’s been happening to truth and trust?

But it stayed in my mind, and after a while I began to wonder why. Pretty soon, I realised that April Fool jokes only work when we have a basic expectation that, by and large, what we read is going to be true, and the joke depends on that sudden humorous realisation that on this occasion, we’ve been had. 

Further, there is just not enough real truth around these days to support this delightful tradition. We almost expect to be lied to, scammed, and deceived, and so we are not open to the enjoyment of such jokes. This is really serious – how much deceit can a society tolerate before it ceases to function? Already, I hardly ever answer my landline, because most of the calls are people seeking to deceive. Why do I even have it? I begin to ask myself. 

I think of the time I nearly paid up a thousand pounds to have delivered to me a non-existent baby grand piano, having been lured into a very plausible email conversation over some weeks. If I had been approached directly, I think I would have spotted it sooner than I did, but the initial email came from a music shop that I had no reason to distrust.

Changing the stories we tell ourselves

Like society, coaching depends on truth. We help you investigate what is true for you, in your own experience, that you can rely on, and subsequently act on, in ways that seem congruent and authentic for you.

In saying this, I do not say that truth is relative and that you can believe just what you fancy – we all come up against the hard rock of reality sooner or later – but rather, what are the unconscious rules and scripts that you are living by, that could be improved?

These are thoughts like:

• ‘People like me don’t do that sort of thing"
• "I’m too old"
• "People will disapprove of me"

Our scripts tell us what we think is true

When we uncover these scripts and, more importantly, say them out loud to another person, it can feel like we are hearing them for the first time. Often, people will say, "I can’t believe I really think that!" The good news is that once we can see such thoughts and scripts, we can choose to change them, and therefore our lives. 

Even as I write this, I reflect that perhaps I, too, am developing a belief that I wish to challenge (yes, we’re all a work in progress, and coaches get coached too!) along the lines of, "you can’t trust anybody these days". Yet when I examine this even a little bit, I realise that in many ways I do act as though most people can be trusted.

For example, I recently travelled alone around the world to visit my daughter in New Zealand, and on the way, I stayed with complete strangers within the Home Exchange system and found nothing but welcome and friendliness. And I have friends and family where I would quite literally put my life in their hands.

What can we actually control?

The kind of focused examination that coaches can do may then lead to inquiries around our own agency. What can we actually do, even control, in our daily lives? What is beyond our control and therefore not worth directing our energy towards? Where can we make that little tweak that really makes a difference? This is precisely what coaches can help you with.