Coaching practices for Paul Gilbert Three Circles
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Paul Gilbert Three Circles, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I’m pulled in a dozen directions and none of them is clearly the thing
- When we sit down to hash something out, it always turns into me-versus-them across the table, and I’m looking for a way to give everyone something shared to focus on so it stops feeling like two sides squaring off.
- I’m either anxious or chasing the next thing, full stop
- I keep treating my way of seeing things as the right one and everyone else’s as a problem to overcome, and I want to genuinely hold that what the people I clash with value is real and needed
- People show up to our hard conversations still carrying whatever happened ten minutes before
Practices that may help
- Map your three circles honestly
Separately answer each circle — passion, best-at, economic engine — before looking for the intersection.
The Hedgehog Concept - Design a centerpiece that holds the circle’s purpose
A shared object at the center of the circle externalizes the group’s collective intention.
The Circle Process (Kay Pranis) - The Three-Circle Model: Mapping Your Emotional Systems
Understand your threat, drive, and soothing systems — and learn which is overactive in your life.
Compassion-Focused Therapy: Calming the Inner Critic - The Circle Process (Kay Pranis)
The circle process, developed by Kay Pranis from Indigenous peacemaking traditions, is a structured group conversation that uses a shared centerpiece, a talking piece, and guiding values to create a space where every voice has equal weight. It’s used for conflict resolution, community building, and harm repair. Research on circle use in schools and communities shows improvements in discipline rates, sense of belonging, and conflict outcomes, though rigorous experimental evidence is limited. - Develop second-tier, systems-level thinking
Practice holding multiple value systems as simultaneously valid rather than competing for dominance.
Spiral Dynamics, Made Practical - Use check-in and check-out rounds to hold the whole person
Every circle opens with a personal check-in and closes with a check-out — creating a container with a beginning and an end.
The Circle Process (Kay Pranis) - Draft three Odyssey Plans
Sketch three different five-year lives — not variations on one, but genuinely divergent paths.
Designing Your Life, Made Practical - Use the talking piece to enforce equal voice
Only the person holding the talking piece speaks — everyone else listens.
The Circle Process (Kay Pranis) - Draft three genuinely different five-year plans
Sketch three distinct five-year lives — not variations on the same theme, but genuinely different directions.
Odyssey Plans: Designing Three Alternative Futures - Ikigai quarterly review
Every three months, map the intersection of what you love, what you are good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for.
Purpose Anchors: Keeping Meaning Accessible Day to Day
Related concerns
- Four Circles Meaning Framework
A shared object at the center of the circle externalizes the group’s collective intention.
Design a centerpiece that holds the circle’s purpose
- Circle Values Opening
Every circle opens with a personal check-in and closes with a check-out — creating a container with a beginning and an end.
Use check-in and check-out rounds to hold the whole person
- Three Circles Cft
Every circle opens with a personal check-in and closes with a check-out — creating a container with a beginning and an end.
- Circle Keeper Role
The circle keeper’s job is to protect the process — not to facilitate outcomes, give advice, or judge.
The keeper holds process, not content
- Circle Process Facilitation
The circle keeper’s job is to protect the process — not to facilitate outcomes, give advice, or judge.
- Circle Process Kay Pranis
The circle process, developed by Kay Pranis from Indigenous peacemaking traditions, is a structured group conversation that uses a shared centerpiece, a talking piece, and guiding values to create a space where every voice has equal weight. It’s used for conflict resolution, community building, and harm repair. Research on circle use in schools and communities shows improvements in discipline rates, sense of belonging, and conflict outcomes, though rigorous experimental evidence is limited.
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