Your intention is to get them weaned on success and ultimately hooked so that they continue to work on their original dream. Today, as I write this chapter, a year-old man is running in the London Marathon. He doesn't believe in ageism. Financial problems. Clients may come to you for help in solving their financial problems. You must make it absolutely clear that you are not a financial adviser and that any action agreed between you and your clients is done without obligation or liability.
Ask your client to spend time identifying their outgoings and income without prejudice. The next step is for them to consult a qualified financial adviser. Explain that you will be there to help them once they have clear actions, set by their financial adviser. Do not offer financial advice or recommend ways of solving their financial crisis or you could be leaving yourself open to risk of prosecution.
You should be aware that there are stringently applied laws that govern the provision of financial advice, either free or in return for a fee. The whole area is a minefield and the safest coaching position is to stay away. You can and should, however, guide your clients towards discovering their own solutions.
Family commitments. This obstacle is the regular cherry. Your clients will use it to opt out of their dreams. It is your job to help them balance the needs and demands of their families with their guilty conscience and their true and ultimate destiny. Never let 11 The Life Coaching Handbook clients use this obstacle. Help them understand that their dreams can be achieved without their families suffering.
Show them how, by achieving their own dreams, their families will also benefit. Hero syndrome. These clients always take on too much work. You need to uncover the reasons behind this action. Is it because they cannot say no?
If this is the reason, recommend some really good books on assertiveness or suggest that they attend a short course where they will get the opportunity to practise the art of saying no. The other reason for accepting too much work is that they want to be seen as a hero. This is similar to the martyr - except that the hero enjoys the glory of being able to help and will willingly sacrifice themselves for the greater cause. If this is the underlying reason you could ask questions to expose this.
Then move on to encourage exploration of alternative ways of experiencing the same feelings through achievement of your clients' outcomes and goals. Lottery madness. Ask them what they could be doing towards their dreams right now. If you have a client who wants to own a house with a sea view, what could they do today, even in a small way, to help achieve the dream? For example, they could investigate the costs of this type of house; they could inspect the proposed location of the house or make a long-term plan that includes all the small tasks that must be done to help them achieve the dream.
You might gently point out that, by putting their faith for the future in the notoriously long lottery odds, they are surrendering their ultimate freedom. This is the freedom to assume control of their lives by taking positive action that achieves the results that they desire.
Treading the treadmill. If your clients are in a rut and cannot see a way out, ask them to make a list of all the jobs, careers or professions that they could do if they had no restrictions. Explain that they must write all ideas down, as you want a very long list.
They should send you a copy of the list before the next coaching session. Their next exercise is to prioritise the list in order of ease to accomplish," "cost-effectiveness," "impact on family" and "impact on self". Sixteen is the maximum score for anyone idea and four is the minimum score.
Those with the lowest scores are the priority ideas to start working on. You must guide your client to discover their task prioritisation.
Simply ask open questions until they decide which ideas they can adopt. Then coach them towards achieving the change. If your client finds this concept difficult, you can simply copy the form below and let them have it as a guide. List your ideas in the first column. Mark each idea from These clients come back time and time again without completing a task because they "did not have the time.
Genuine time issues are easily addressed by recommending that your clients attend a time-management course or read a book on time management.
If you unearth a commitment issue, you must confront your client with their behaviour and remind them of the commitment they have made to themselves and to you. Remind them of the benefits that they said they would enjoy when they achieved their goal.
Challenge them on why they consistently fail to deliver. Several of your clients may be burning out because they work too hard and play too little. They get their kicks from the adrenaline rush of a crisis. They claim that they perform better when they have tight deadlines. They love the buzz and they may not want to give it up. Assure these clients that the buzz of achieving their goals through their own efforts is an equally strong but healthy and lasting euphoria.
You will need to use some of the advanced techniques covered in Chapter Eight on NeuroLinguistic Programming and Chapter Seventeen, which deals with the Spiral Coaching model.
Trapped by trappings. The client wants to lead a simpler life but feels unable to live without the material things that their current lifestyle provides. Ask these clients to write a list of all the reasons why they want a simpler life and all the reasons for remaining in the current lifestyle. Follow up by using a priority list similar to the one described earlier in Treading the treadmill.
Coaching is about helping your clients to achieve balance with all areas of life. For these clients, their fixation on materialism is tipping the balance. Sapped by suckers. Some clients keep company with people who take the juice and energy out of them.
These friends, colleagues, sport partners and even spouses continually suck the enthusiasm out of such clients by creating obstacles or excuses to prevent change. Ask your client to consider the possibility that their associates may feel threatened by the planned changes and may need to be reassured, by the client, that change will be good for all parties. If this reassurance does not work, they may need to make some serious decisions about the value of these friendships.
Support and encourage your client to find new friendships in the areas of their goals. Explain that they should spend time wisely and with people who will help, rather than hinder, them. This transition may take some time, since certain clients will not want to surrender old friends for new ideas. A seamless and successful way to accomplish this transition is to agree constantly to tasks that encourage forming new friendships that leave little time for activities with the old, nonsupportive friends and that encourage the remaining small amount of time to be spent with only the old friends who are positive-minded.
Rebels have loads of things they want to do but, as soon as they commit to you, they feel the burning desire to kick back at you by not achieving. Strange but true. I know this because I used to be a rebel against myself. Once I had committed to achieving tasks with my life coach, I would deliberately not do them.
We worked out a great system to overcome this destructive trait. I would commit to only one or two tasks, but I could do more if I wanted. At the same time, I could even choose not to do anything. All the possible tasks were listed with the complete understanding that I might not do any of them. This created the freedom for me to achieve without the feeling of being forced to do things.
This technique is being used at this moment, as I choose to spend my Sunday writing instead of feeling I have to write. Life coaching is about removing the obstacles and encouraging your clients to go beyond their perceived barriers to the accomplishment of their dreams and aspirations. It is about using communication skills to get the best from your clients and to help them to identify the obstacles in their daily life.
The aim is for them to create a life that is full of balance and fulfilment. It is about being there for your clients when everyone else thinks they are mad, bad or sad. It is understanding that all your clients have immense potential that is just waiting to be released. It is about knowing that you, as a coach, can help. Be there for your clients when everyone else thinks they are mad, bad or sad 15 Chapter Three Coaching versus Counselling and Therapy 'Counsellors and therapists may look to the past for answers.
Life coaches deal with the now and the future' Synopsis There are links between therapies and life coaching but the links are not in the style, methodologies, techniques or tools of working: they derive from cause and effect.
Even if they have the ability for intervention, life coaches should always refer clients believed to need therapeutic help to fully trained and qualified professionals. Life coaching and therapy have very different agendas for the client.
There is no officially recognised UK body for professionally qualified life coaches. To identify the differences between coaching, counselling and therapy, it is necessary to present an overview of the procedures that are sometimes mistakenly confused with coaching.
These typically include counselling, physiotherapy, psychotherapy, NeuroLinguistic Programming NLP , hypnotherapy and psychiatry. Take physiotherapy and coaching. At first glance there is no obvious link between them, although using one therapy might lead to using the other.
Physiotherapy is, according to Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary, "treatment of disease Life coaching does not deal with diseases of the body or mind. It does help with clients' dis-ease, unease or dissatisfaction.
It helps with issues of self-esteem and inability to achieve desired goals. There may be a possible link of cause and effect. If, for example, a client comes to you for support and encouragement while they are 17 The Life Coaching Handbook receiving treatment from their physiotherapist. Then your coaching could take the form of motivating the client to keep performing the exercises recommended by their physiotherapy programme.
By encouraging and congratulating the client on the improvements made and then helping them to set new targets, your coaching can have a huge impact on their speed of recovery. The reverse of this is less pleasant. It could occur after you have encouraged your client to take up some form of exercise to improve their health. If, under your guidance and encouragement, they overstretch themselves and suffer injury, they may require the assistance of a physiotherapist.
Do note, however, that these are simple "cause-and-effect" links. There are no links that concern the methods of working. All of the other therapies mentioned generally involve some form of personal-history analysis. The client ordinarily has to go into their past for the therapist to devise a method of treatment. Thus the therapists need extensive knowledge and ability if they are to offer useful advice. Counselling, for example, may be needed following a single and clearly identified trauma such as bereavement, serious accident to self or family, divorce or redundancy.
Life coaching, however, is based in the present and the future. It is founded on the premise that the past need not equate to the future. Most coaches do not advocate giving advice to clients, preferring to work as a catalyst in helping clients to define their own way forward.
This is a very different method of working from those used by a therapist or counsellor. Many counsellors and psychotherapists are drawn to a career in life coaching. This presents serious challenges for them because coaching differs from the way that they have become accustomed to dealing with their patients. The decision to call them a 'patient' or 'client' helps to distinguish intervention from guidance. Generally speaking, both these professions explore the patient's past by discovering previously created blocks or obstacles.
Then they use interventions to remove these blocks or obstacles to help the patient's recovery. They use techniques and language patterns that are designed and dedicated for this approach. Indeed they could present problems for the coaching client who may become confused and misunderstand the vital distinction between therapy and life coaching - that therapy works from the past and life coaching starts from the present. Life coaching is not about the past, which is important only if it seriously affects the results of the coaching.
In such instances the life coach would refer the client to a specialist therapist for help, as it is not part of coaching to offer therapeutic interventions. Even if the life coach, like myself, has the appropriate therapy skills and qualifications to do this, it is still preferable for the client to seek help from other professional sources.
The reason for this recommendation is that clients can easily become confused about whether their sessions are therapy or coaching, and this can irrevocably damage the relationship. The serious implication of attempting to combine therapy with life coaching is that a confused client may find no benefits from either.
If the client needs therapy and becomes disillusioned because of this confusion of boundaries, there is a risk they may never again seek or receive the assistance that they need to live a fulfilling and rewarding life. This is a very serious burden for the therapist and should be avoided at all costs. So, to summarise, a therapist should stick to therapy during a session and a life coach should stick to coaching. The therapist can then continue looking towards the past with the life coach dealing with the present and the future.
Life coaching has absolutely no connections with psychiatry. Should a life coach suspect that a client might have a need for such specialist attention, they should not attempt a diagnosis.
They should firmly and gently tell the client to consult their doctor, who is trained to diagnose a problem and to recommend psychiatry or other treatment. NLP includes some very useful techniques for life coaching. The NLP section of this book identifies these, with the emphasis on the linguistic aspects. It also covers some of the neurological features 19 The Life Coaching Handbook the life coach can use.
It deliberately excludes therapeutic interventions. Life coaching is not about interventions. It is about goal setting and achievement. There are currently no formally recognised professional qualifications for life coaching. There are several good organisations that offer training leading to their own qualifications in life coaching.
Training is delivered at day or residential courses, distance learning via the Internet or, in some instances, a combination of both. It is important for all life coaches to obtain some form of qualification, which clients can check and verify if they are so minded. All coaches should advocate the importance of thorough training and qualifications and the adherence to a stringent code of ethics to protect the reputation of this still young, but fast growing, profession. This understanding ensures that we perform at our best and elicit the best performances from our clients.
Without this understanding you can waste precious time working on areas that are controlled by a client's fundamental belief. Use the "selftalk interrupt" process to help your clients. Using role models needs good questioning skills to determine the client's underlying beliefs. Recommend a therapist for significant belief changes and concentrate on coaching.
It is essential for every life coach to understand how beliefs are formed and the impact that they have on clients and coaches alike. This understanding will ensure that you perform at your best and elicit the best results from your clients.
Without this understanding, you will waste precious time on areas that are controlled by a fundamental client belief. Your beliefs were being formed from the moment you entered this world. People smiled or shouted at you when you were a baby. These, and all your subsequent interactions with other humans, formed the person that you are today.
You have created, and continue to create, an image of yourself that is based on the attitudes of other people. It is an image that can either help or hinder the development of your potential and it changes with circumstances and situations. At the beginning of your life, "experts" evaluated everything that you did.
You accepted and recorded their opinions as the truth. Now that you are grown up you can evaluate whether these well-meaning souls really were experts concerning your abilities. You can decide whether they added to or limited your development.
They probably did both. You now operate within the limits of your self-image and it becomes real for you. Eventually it becomes your comfort zone, where you feel safe, secure and protected.
A comfort zone can be a negative place. You can feel safe and secure in prison but you would surely not want to stay incarcerated for ever.
Many people, perhaps you too, choose to stay in the prison of selfimage, self-beliefs and self-talk. In the British penal system the authorities will release you as soon as you have served your sentence. All that it takes to escape from your mentally created prison is your decision to change.
As soon as you decide to change, you have the freedom to choose and to enjoy empowering beliefs and behaviours. The process is the same for your clients. They have their own imagined prisons and it is your job to provide the key that allows them to open the door and enjoy freedom.
Remaining within an imagined prison - to retain beliefs and to repeat behaviours while expecting a different outcome - can be compared to a trapped wasp.
It will continue to fly into the windowpane, time and time again until it dies. It never looks for alternative escape routes. It just keeps flying at the glass. Performing the same task in the same way and expecting different results has been offered as a definition of madness. With total self-honesty, you may admit that you have probably done just this and you are still getting the same results.
Your self-image is an accumulation of every attitude and opinion that you have been told about yourself since birth. You have perpetuated and reinforced this by repetition until, eventually, it has formed the subconscious picture of your self-image.
This has become who you believe that you are, it determines how you respond to life and what you believe you are capable of doing. It has become your comfort zone. It could even be full of pain, poverty and drudgery. People remain in these situations because their self-image and belief systems support them there. They feel secure and comfortable in the knowledge that this is what they deserve or are worthy of.
You are within a closed loop. Your self-image is created by your belief system what you believe to be true about yourself. You build and nourish these beliefs and feel comfortable with them.
They become who you believe you are. You know and trust them because you can prove that they are right and, therefore, they must be true. Think of a belief as an empty suitcase. Once you have a suitcase you can find clothes to pack into it. Everything that has been said to you, about you, becomes a piece of clothing. Everything that has been done to you becomes another piece of clothing - a reference for you to put into the suitcase.
All the references that you can find in your life become the clothes to pack. Soon, you have a very strong and very full suitcase. The more clothes references that you cram into the suitcase belief , the more certain you become about your belief life. More references equal stronger beliefs, which you continue to nurture because they make you sure about who you are. Your beliefs can be changed. Your clients' beliefs can be changed.
You can start right now to change any limiting or disabling beliefs that are holding you back from becoming who you were created to be. The following practical, simple exercise will allow you to prove this for yourself. Do it now. For example, you may believe, "I am too old," "I am too young," "I don't have a university degree," "I am too fat.
Think of these in the context of situations that make you feel helpless, unsure, inadequate, lacking in confidence.
Now select just one of these limiting beliefs. Find all the references that support it the clothes in your suitcase. Find as many references as you can and list them all. Here is where the fun begins. This should be the opposite view. For example, if you had the limiting belief that, "I am bad at remembering names," just decide that, from now on, your belief will be, "I am good at remembering names.
This constant repetition will enhance your self-image and will break into the closed loop of your belief systems. It may have taken you all your life to acquire your old, limiting belief. So be prepared for it to take some time for the new liberating belief to cut in. You may need to repeat this sentence frequently and even repeat the whole process.
Whenever you find yourself thinking your old belief, repeat your new positive version to yourself. Your positive sentences must contain three essential components. Make them personal by using the word "I.
They do not need to be true just yet - they are statements that you would like to be true about you and that could become true. As before, you must use the present tense, as if they were already true. Use these statements to replace the equivalent, old, limiting belief. Add the references to support these new, positive and empowering beliefs. Create a mental image of yourself actually doing and enjoying this new behaviour.
This will gradually create your new self-image. This is the new vision of how you really are. The next time that you find yourself behaving in the old limiting way, or even thinking in that way, you must stop that voice in your head and replace it immediately with your new sentence - even if it is not yet true. What you are doing here is recognising the old pattern, interrupting and breaking it, and then replacing it with your empowering belief.
This is called the "self-talk interrupt" process. Replace it with your new sentence even if it is not yet true. See, feel and experience the rewards of your new belief.
Enjoy these rewards as if you already had them. You really do have a choice. You can give up and carryon reinforcing your old limiting beliefs or you can play your new, empowering sentence and work on changing your beliefs.
Find something that you already do well and praise yourself for that skill. Then build on that praise by adding your new sentence. Concentrate on repeating the new belief about yourself.
You choose to believe your own beliefs, therefore you can choose to change them. The motivational speaker Anthony Robbins of Robbins Research International says, "It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped. Here is a very powerful and easy way to change old habits and beliefs.
Think of a person whom you consider to be very skilful in what it is that you want to be able to do. Now model that person. Stand in front of a mirror in private and mimic the ways they hold their body, talk, laugh, breathe, move and anything else you can think of. Consider how they get what they want, how they stand, sit, walk, gesticulate.
Think about what they do that you currently do not do. Then ask this question, "What would I need to believe in order to behave in this same way? Use this technique to help you to develop yourself and your clients. When your clients name a person they wish to emulate, you must examine the underlying reasons behind their choice of this model. What is the skill that they wish to acquire and does the model have it in abundance?
Is it truly the skill that they desire or simply their model's lifestyle? Ask them to think of others who have the desired skill, as this opens up their possibilities and allows them really to explore their desire for it. The crucial question that must always be answered is, "What does the model have to believe in order to have success in that skill? Once you believe in the success of a technique you 26 Essential Coaching Beliefs are able to make it available to your client with sincerity and assurances that it really is effective.
Some of your clients may have attended personal development courses or seminars and will have heard about limiting beliefs. When this happens you can simply weave belief-changing suggestions into your normal coaching sessions. Clients who have no prior knowledge will need to be very carefully guided through the whole subject of belief changing, as it can be difficult to grasp when it is first heard. You may wish to write out the belief-changing exercise and ask such clients to complete it for discussion at a later session.
A more beneficial approach would be to suggest that your client consult an NLP practitioner or therapist for help in belief changing. Remember that you are employed as a coach, not as a therapist. You must not confuse the boundaries, because this will weaken your coaching sessions and damage your reputation as an outstanding results-oriented life coach.
Remember that coaching is only about results. Good listening supplies the building blocks of good understanding. Open questions encourage clients to think positively for themselves and to give an original, genuine answer.
Restrict your use of closed questions to times when you have facts and details to check. An open question is often more useful. The ability to listen to, observe and interpret all forms of language is essential for life coaching. Several different studies on how we communicate show that, if both people are totally congruent at the time of communicating, some 55 per cent of their communication will be by body language, approximately 38 per cent will be based on tonality of voice and only 7 per cent will derive from the words themselves.
However, when you are coaching, it is important to make sure that your words, body language and tonality are congruent.
Congruency means that they are all aligned and sending the same message. This means that, if you say yes when your head is moving from side to side, even the slightest movement will be interpreted from your body language as meaning no. We have all experienced conversations where we have come away thinking, "I'm not so sure that they meant what they said.
It is also important that you maintain eye contact when you are talking to your clients, as this is a natural expression of your interest in their message. Avoid closing your eyes in conversation as this breaks the eye contact and distracts the client's attention.
It may even cause them to think that you are not to be trusted. Similarly, if you consistently look away while either of you is speaking, the client may interpret, rightly or wrongly, that you are shifty, deceitful, untrustworthy or just plain rude. Your body language tells your clients what you are thinking about them and you must send a message of openness, honesty and trust.
This can be achieved only by open body language, with your arms either open and relaxed at your side or resting comfortably on your lap. Do not cross your arms or legs during a conversation with a client. They could interpret this posture as meaning that you are not interested in what they have to say or that you feel insecure and nonassertive. No client will feel reassured or confident with your coaching abilities when they have these thoughts. Remember, you have no control over how your client interprets your body language.
If your practice is in an area with a high proportion and mix of eth- nic residents, you should undertake some personal research on 30 Essential Communication Skills any particular body-language gestures that are especially respectful, acceptable or downright rude in other cultures. The nineteenth-century American philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "What you are doing speaks so loudly I can't hear what you say. Sometimes your coaching sessions with your clients will be conducted over the telephone.
At such times you need to be particularly aware of your tonality, which will transmit a major portion of your message. Engage the services of a speech therapist or a voice coach if you need to.
If you speak too softly, your clients may interpret it as lack of confidence or drive. Be aware of any changes that you need to make to the volume of your voice to convey the messages you want to convey. You will find it useful to listen regularly to interviews on speech radio. Unlike television encounters, where the images may distract you, radio interviews will help you to identify what makes a voice "boring" or "interesting. You will find a small tape recorder very useful for this.
Good breathing will help you to control volume and tonality. If you breathe deeply when you are speaking, you can actually give yourself more voice power. You can gradually - or, for effect, suddenly - increase the speed, then speak quickly, and then slow down again, all within a few sentences.
Your tone can even change the meaning of a simple statement. For example, if your voice stays level all the way through a sentence it will imply to your clients that this is a statement. If you raise your voice at the end of a statement, it will be heard as a question. If, instead, you drop your voice at the end, it gives the impression of a command. If you are listening actively, you are receiving these tonality differences, too.
Be conscious of what your voice tone is conveying and make sure you are congruent. Trust your inner voice and your instinct when you are speaking. If you are unsure, start by saying, "I am unsure whether this is the right thing to say.
Is that all right with you? Perhaps it even implies that it does not matter if you don't succeed because you didn't make a firm commitment to do something: you merely said you would try. Listen to your own language. If you are using the word "try," you are setting yourself up for failure. Not just failure when dealing with clients but failure in dealing with yourself. You are giving your subconscious mind the message that it is acceptable to fail. It is not acceptable to fail.
Exchange "try" for a more powerful word, one that will empower you and yield better results. If you replace the word "try" with "will" you may still fail, but at least you have given yourself a greater chance of success. By saying "I will," you are giving your subconscious mind the instruction to succeed in this venture instead of merely to try, which is the instruction or excuse to fail.
Use "will" and your subconscious will provide you with the resources needed for success, simply because you have flagged that outcome as important. Listen for the use of "try" by your clients, because this tells you that their commitment level is not high enough to complete the task. As soon as a client says "I will try," immediately question the commitment by repeating, with a questioning inflection and a raised voice, the word "try?
If they continue to use "try," ask, "On a scale of a hundred per cent, where's your commitment to this task at the moment? Ask, "What would you need to do in order to increase your commitment to a hundred per cent? Ask yourself how good you feel when you have said something and received the "but" or "however" response.
This is not the feeling that you want to give your clients. Replace "but" with another three-letter word that is incredibly empowering. Your clients will feel that you have considered their viewpoint. Replace "but" with "and. The client feels comfortable and picks up the impression that you had an interest in what they said. Indeed, they were so interesting that it inspired you to build on their comments with your own point of view.
Do Not Think of a Red Boat! Now that you've read the above heading, what do you now have in your mind? It will be a picture of a red boat! The reason for this is the English language. The mind cannot take a negative verb at the beginning until it knows what the actual object of the sentence is; then, by the time you get to the object, you have had to create it in order not to create it!
If you want people to do something, or if you want them to stop doing something, be very clear with your instructions. For example, tell someone, "Don't forget my book when you come to work tomorrow," and you are planting the suggestion and instruction to forget your book.
To increase the chances of the book's arriving, just simply tell them what you want them to do. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat. Tolkien This extract shows that even a simple greeting like good morning," can be taken in four different ways. In fact, good morning" can also be used to say that you want to get rid of someone.
Use a sharper, deeper tone of voice and it means that you want them to go. So, if words have several different interpretations, you need to take great care with the ones that you use during coaching sessions.
II II Listening is probably the most underrated communication skill. It is a critical element of any successful interaction with your clients. You should listen to help you build a picture of your client's world, its information and its substance, and their experience of it. Listen for their potential and their obstacles. This involves listening to and interpreting what your clients are saying - and noting what is not being said.
Recognise both verbal and nonverbal messages. Listening is an active process involving: ears - for verbal communications eyes - for nonverbal communications body - for physically showing that you are listening Always practise active listening when you are coaching. At a faceto-face coaching session, sit square to and directly opposite your client. Turning at an angle from them will lessen your involvement. Adopt an open posture with your arms open and your 34 Essential Communication Skills palms upwards.
Lean slightly forwards to show that you are very interested in them and what they are saying. The client must see that you are relaxed and in control of the situation. Allow your client to confirm that you are listening by using encouraging noises such as, "I see," "Mmm," "Yes," and" Aha. During face-to-face sessions, use these noises in conjunction with nonverbal signals, such as nodding the head and looking expectant.
Well-timed pauses give time for explanation, evaluation and development of thought. Be sensitive to facial expressions to tell the difference between a pregnant pause and an embarrassed silence. Pauses on the telephone need to be constantly monitored so that your clients do not feel that they have to ask if you are still listening.
Using active listening techniques will encourage your clients to confide in you and this will allow you to develop them further than they ever thought possible. It is claimed by some researchers that over 2 million pieces of information reach our senses every minute.
How this can be measured is a mystery to me but the reason I am mentioning this is because we filter information received so that it makes sense in our personal model of the world.
We add, distort, assume and delete all of the time. For example, as you are reading these sentences your filters have deleted most of the environment around you to enable you to concentrate. These filters protect your mind and in doing so they sometimes hinder your abilities and progress. About 80 per cent of readers will assume Pat is a male and about 60 per cent will also assume Les is male. There is nothing in the sentence to indicate the sex of either Pat or Les.
What sex are your Pat and Les? Did you assume any of the following? Summarising is an essential active coaching skill that serves to clarify the particular area under discussion and clearly demonstrates that you are listening. It involves reviewing the topic or theme you are considering by briefly restating the key elements.
Regular summarising, including checking understanding, helps to reduce the impact of assuming meaning. State what you believe was expressed by saying, "My understanding of what you've just said is Summarising allows you to take stock of the main points already covered. It demonstrates understanding and separates what has been covered into "goals still under discussion" and "goals that remain unexplored.
When you use a summary to confirm your client's commitment to actions it increases the leverage for results. Once a client has agreed to take action, ask them to set a date by which it will be accomplished. Listen for hesitation, a weak voice or lack of certainty, as these are indicators that your client is not fully committed to this action and will probably not do it. Whenever you hear hesitation you must confront your client to reestablish the outcomes or the purpose.
It is futile to let hesitation pass in the hope that your clients will complete the task simply because they said they would.
Challenge your client: "I'm not convinced you're committed to doing [the agreed assignment]. On a scale of one to five, five meaning you're fully committed to making this happen, where would you say you are at the moment? When clients do not achieve their agreed tasks it reflects badly on you.
You are responsible for their results. With effective questioning you can show care, interest, sympathy, empathy and your wish to help your clients to develop.
You can use questions to lead clients into thinking for themselves, thinking positively, solving their own problems and taking actions. All too often, we ask closed questions that invite a yes-orno answer.
Will you write to them if I give you the address? Did you call the bank manager? Do you work more effectively when I challenge you? Do you want to have the meeting on Monday?
Can you send the cheque by first-class mail? Do you want the Gold Service? Closed questions are useful for checking detail, confirming facts and getting commitment to action. Take care, though, because they may produce a misleading answer or put the client into the position where they feel that they must answer yes, just to please you.
Open questions are the most effective type for coaching. They pass the control to your client and produce lots of useful information. There are seven main words for asking open questions: Who can you approach to help you achieve that? Where can you find that information? Which goal is more important to you? How far did you get with that task?
What date will you achieve this by? When did you complete that? Why is that important to you? When you are seeking thoughts, feelings and reactions from your clients use such questions as: How do you feel about What do you think of What should we do about What do you like about When will you complete the task? It can investigate their motivation, present a challenge or a threat, put your clients on the defensive or produce reasons and excuses. Asking a "why" question runs the risk of producing an evasive, aggressive or uncooperative response from your clients.
It is useful to replace "why" with "what" or "how. This is especially important if they have not achieved the agreed tasks. Consider the difference between "Why didn't you do it?
What is it you think I can provide that you don't have yourself? What is it that you want to accomplish? What else? What steps do you think you can do to fulfil this? When you say [X], what does that mean? So is that like [Y]? What else specifically? How specifically? What are you willing to do to make this happen? How is life now? Tell me more about that, please. What would that look like? What I don't understand is Where in your life are you not doing [A]?
What concerns do you have about that? How was that process for you? What you want coaching on is [B]. How committed are you in this? What makes this an issue for you? Who makes you do [C]? What does "happy" mean for you? What would happen if you didn't Is that what you want?
If not now, when? If not you, then who? What is possible? Are you willing to be open and honest with me? What would you need to know to be able to Wha t' s missing? What needs to be present for it to happen?
What is it about [X] that will give you What would it take for you to know rather than just thinking? When will you have the experience? How can you bring that into your life right now? Would that make [Y] more fulfilling for you?
Would it work for you to do that today? Where can you find a better way right now to get what you want? When will you do that?
Are you clear about what we've agreed you will do? What else do you want to work on? What do you think you need today? Any question that gives you information, that makes your client think or that reveals hidden motivations is a good question. To some extent, it is better if you can encourage people to give you information without having to ask too many questions. When your client is responding, use encouraging noises or words. Promotion next year?
So Mr Jones needs to read it? Completed by the 15th? Nod Raised eyebrows Lean forward Smile Concentrate on the answer Look interested Comments made in an enquiring tone, achieved by raising your voice at the end of the sentence: You do?
That's all? It was really good? That's so? Using encouraging signs and noises gives you more time and space to think and consider the ideas being expressed. Even a pause, if it is accompanied by positive body language, can be encouraging and lead to an improved exchange of views. The two main areas the life coach initially needs to concentrate on are how to build the practice and how to get clients interested enough to pay for your service.
Actually setting up a life coaching practice is very simple and inexpensive. The four things you need are a telephone, notepaper, diary and a pen. Referrals are the most effective approach to building a client base and therefore building a successful coaching practice. This is one of the most important chapters in this book. You must be able to generate enquiries and then convert an enquiry into a paying client in order to stay in business.
Without this skill you will not create your life coaching practice and will be robbed of that superb feeling of excitement that arrives when one of your clients succeeds beyond their wildest dreams. You need to start by concentrating on two main areas: building your practice and getting clients interested enough to pay for your service. Many life coaches come from a heartfelt desire to help their fellow human beings and it is this desire that was their motivation to enter the profession. The big dilemma for these life coaches is justifying to themselves the need to charge for this service.
After all, they rationalise, "The 43 The Life Coaching Handbook client does all the work and I only facilitate the success.
Here are the only four things that you really need to begin. When you add the following inexpensive items you will be off to a winning start. ITEM A colour trifold brochure with a picture of you on the front or the back. You will either hand these out or send them off to people who seek more information.
With the owners' consent, you can place them in locations where your prospective clients are likely to visit. Business cards These should have your name, practice name, address and telephone number. Include your fax number, e-mail address and website details if you have them. Your business cards can be one of your most effective low-cost marketing tools, but they cannot work for you if they are sitting in your desk drawer.
Headed paper Paper with your practice name, address and your logo. Keep to standard A4 size. Compliments slips Rectangular pieces of headed notepaper with "With compliments" printed in the centre. These are usually one-third of an A4 sheet. Press releases Typed press releases about life coaching.
You send these regularly to local, national press and media to generate interest and clients. Remember to include your telephone number for any enquiries. This is easy to arrange with the post office.
The cost is very low and you can choose whether your mail is delivered with your usual domestic post or whether you collect it from your local sorting office. You pay more to have it delivered. You will also need to arrange a separate business bank account, bookkeeping, and VAT registration optional. These matters will be dealt with in more detail in Chapter Eighteen.
So, how do you generate interest in an embryonic service-industry profession? Coaching Log Template. Coach Notes. Download your free life coaching tools and exercises pdf.
Free Life Coaching Resources. Free Tools For Life Coaching. Coaching Log. Follow-up Form. Life Coach Journal. Download Forms. Starter Coach Kit. Classic Coach Kit. Pro Coach Kit. Email Address Please provide email address where you want the digital uploads to be sent. Get Starter Coach Kit. Get Classic Coach Kit.
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