There’s something about triangles, and this one always makes an impact with people I coach.
The head is your thoughts, your reasoning. The heart is your emotions, your feelings. The hands represents your actions and behaviours. When there’s a good balance of the three, things seem good.
Equilateral triangle = equilibrium in the mind.
And when the three are out of kilter, don’t we know it! (stress … over-active thoughts … feeling overburdened, etc)
That’s when it can help to apply this lens, for example, by asking yourself, am I thinking too much [head], have I paused to consider my feelings [heart], am I being super-busy doing stuff [hands] without reflecting on my feelings and purpose?
In coaching it’s a useful tool for looking ahead, e.g. when a client is wondering what they want to achieve, figure out or resolve, it can be revealing for them to ask, what do I want to be thinking, what do I want to feel, what do I want to be doing?
Or, when considering with different scenarios and potential outcomes: what thoughts will this trigger, will this feel right, what actions will it enable?
You can adapt this to any version of the “think – feel – do” questions, but what the questions really offer is space for figuring things out. I like to think it’s the space inside the triangle where the magic happens. It’s in this space you bring together the domains of the head, the heart and the hands.