Life Coaching| Coaching is Client-Centered

Life Coaching| Coaching is Client-Centered

We’ve talked a lot about the difference in coaching and other forms of professional support like counselling, therapist, psychiatrist advisor or mentor. 

Please note that all our articles related to Life coaching are equally important for both Coach and the client. A coach can learn about coaching basics and a potential client can understand what life coaching is all about. Besides, a client can make up their mind whether they need to hire a coach for them or not?  

Why the client is loaded with so much of responsibility? This one thing that you all still might be having trouble to understand.   After all, being the coach they can get so good at reading people that they can listen to someone talk for 15 minutes about their problem and come up with a solution they haven’t seen after their own lifetime of coping.

The reality of the matter is that the clients have much more insight than a coach does. The Client -

• knows their history from birth to now?
• has the most information about the day-to-day, hour-to-hour details?
• thinks the most about the problem?
• has the most to gain if the problem is solved?
• has the most to lose if the problem isn't solved?

In every circumstance, it is the client who has the answer to these questions right? 

They have the most to gain, the most to lose, and they are the ones who have to make the investment (mentally/financially) to see change manifest.

Once again, giving someone enough information is not going to change them.  The client knows what their problems are.  Sometimes they even know the solutions to their problems even.  The difficult is the heart – at what point do they own what they see and step across the edge to change it.  It is their decision.

So in the coaching relationship, a coach is not directive or prescriptive, they support a process in which the client is cheered to direct themselves.  At the end of the day, clients are more motivated by what they’ve planned than what has been directed by a source outside of them.

Keeping things client centered – directives for Coach

There’s an inclination for coaches and clients to fall back on the advice-giving method.  To keep things client-centered:

• The coach should start every meeting asking the client what they would like to begin with.
• On progress reports, ask the client to bring their notes and provide updates on the action items they’ve been working on
• When first posed with a “What do you think?”  Respond with “I don’t know.  What do you think?”
• Ask the client to provide action steps in their own words.  Don’t do that work for them.  Have them verbalize it and then write it.

The coach as facilitator

It’s important to understand that a coach isn’t sitting happily by floating aimlessly with any wind or whim of the client.  The coach consistently has a role of maintaining focus and pushing things forward towards action.  This is a stretch for many people who languish in rehashing the same thoughts, ideas, and conversations with nothing decided and no action steps taken.

Every meeting, the coach will:

• Ask for progress updates on action steps that were previously committed to
• Keep the conversations flowing towards the goal
• Induce the client by questioning for more action steps

I believe you all understood what I meant by saying “Coaching is client-centered?”