By Adam Sicinski

A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment. – John Wooden

The Purpose of Life Coaching

As we go through life, we typically face many challenges, fears, and setbacks along the way. These difficulties can often lead us astray and result in uncompleted goals and unfulfilled desires.

Getting caught up in these problems can certainly put us on the back foot, which can lead to indecision and riddle us with self-doubt.

When the decisions we make are ineffective, then the results we acquire are sub-par, and life becomes somewhat of a struggle — lived through a state of desperation.

Life coaching is a self-improvement service designed to help us get out of a state of desperation and into a state of inspiration.

When we live in a state of inspiration, every decision we make and action we take supports our greater good and helps us reach our full potential in any field of endeavor.

Life coaching will, for instance, help you to:

• Develop new skills
• Capitalize on your strengths
• Overcome weaknesses
• Expand your comfort zone
• Improve your thinking
• Eliminate limiting beliefs
• Clarify your goals and priorities
• Develop empowering habits and rituals
• Strengthen your core values
• Improve your ability to learn from mistakes and failure
• Upgrade your social skills and strengthen your relationships
• Unlock your life’s purpose

In a nutshell, life coaching is designed to help provide you with the support and guidance you need to excel in any area of your life.

Identifying the Various Life Coaching Roles We Must Play

Within a professional coaching relationship, both the client and coach have specific roles they must fulfill. These roles are designed to ensure that the client receives the necessary support and feedback they need to excel throughout the coaching process.

During each coaching session the life coach must fulfill the following roles:

• They must direct their client by asking open and closed-ended questions. These questions help them to better assess their client’s wants, desires, and needs.
• They must listen carefully to their client’s words during conversation. Likewise, they need to be attuned to the subtleties of their client’s body language. Their objective is to look for congruencies and/or inconsistencies between the words their client speaks and their body language.
• They must give proper feedback to help guide their client down a more optimal path toward their goals.
• They must work on raising a client’s self-confidence and self-belief. This helps empower their client to take decisive and proactive action toward their goals.
• They must help their client improve how they think about their circumstances. This effectively means guiding their client toward making perspective shifts in the way they view themselves, others, and their life.
• They must provide their client with relevant feedback to help them make more optimal decisions about their life, career, goals, problems, and relationships.
• They must provide their client with practical techniques, strategies, and tools to help them become more resourceful when dealing with difficulties.
• They must provide adequate encouragement and emotional support when their client struggles to overcome particular life challenge.
• They must provide their client with alternate perspectives and insights that will help them make the most of their opportunities.
• They must help their client set goals and overcome potential roadblocks that stand between them and the life they desire to live.
• They must challenge their client’s limiting beliefs, unhelpful thoughts, and attitudeswhile at the same time empowering them to make better choices and decisions.
• They must encourage their client to develop critical strengths and to acquire valuable skills to overcome their problems and achieve their goals.
• They must provide their client with new models of thinking to help them better manage their emotions and become more resilient during times of great adversity.

The client also has certain roles to play during each coaching session. Their roles include:

• Talking openly and honestly about their feelings, thoughts, life, and circumstances. The more open and honest they are, the more value they will gain from each coaching session.
• Participating proactively during the coaching session. This essentially means working with the coach to explore their problems and circumstances from various angles and perspectives.
• Being willing to explore possible solutions that might help them overcome their problems. This also applies to solutions that they were previously hesitant to explore. Openmindedness is the key.
• Thinking optimistically yet realistically about their life and circumstances. The client must come to believe that anything is possible as long as there is a concrete plan in place.

This list of roles is certainly not exhaustive. However, it does at the very least provide some insight into the roles and responsibilities of the coach and client over a series of life coaching sessions.

Identifying the Barriers to Effective Life Coaching

Whenever there is any form of communication between two or more people, there are always barriers that will typically hinder the communication process.

In a coach and client (coachee) relationship, these barriers can either be environmental or physical. Environmental barriers might, for instance, include:

• Visual distractions
• Strong odors and smells
• Disruptive sounds
• Uncomfortable room temperature
• Physical objects situated within the coaching environment that distract the senses

Each one these environmental barriers can get in the way of useful communication between the coach and coachee. They get in the way because they either cause some form of distraction or lead to feelings of discomfort.

Given this, it’s quite clear to see that if the coaching environment isn’t fully optimized, that this can very often lead to communication breakdowns that directly impact the value the coachee derives from their coaching sessions.

From a coaching perspective, it’s absolutely paramount that you create an environment that is free from any distractions that might interfere with the channels of communication between you and your client.

If you’re the coachee, it’s likewise, essential to remove all possible distractions from the environment to ensure that you get the most value from each coaching session.

Another barrier that is somewhat more difficult to work-around is the physical barrier that stems from a coachee’s physiology and communication style.

For instance, the facial expressions or the body language used by the coach or coachee can very quickly become a visual distraction. The coach might, for example, make unfamiliar facial gestures that interfere with their client’s train of thought.

Given this, the coach must be very mindful how their gestures are coming across during their coaching session.

As a general rule, life coaches must make an effort to keep their body language and facial gestures to a minimum. This will subsequently help the coachee focus more on what is being said and discussed rather than on the visual aspects of their environment.

When it comes to physical barriers, personal presentation is also of paramount importance.

A coach who has dressed the part and professionally presents themselves will naturally gain the respect of their client. Likewise, a client who presents themselves appropriately earns the respect of their coach.

It’s somewhat unfortunate that we often make quick judgments about people based on the way they present themselves. These judgments subsequently cloud our vision and interfere with the communication process.

This might, of course, be understandable in social settings. However, when it comes to a coach and coachee relationship, the fewer barriers there are, the less likely communication breakdowns will occur.

One final barrier that’s helpful to keep in mind comes down to our communication style.

As a coach, you might for instance use slang or technical terms that make your client feel uncomfortable. Possibly you speak too quickly or too slowly. Maybe, even too loudly or softly. Or, perhaps you tend to speak the same words over and over again like a broken record. 

The style and methods of communication you use can become extremely distracting. As a result, your client will tend to lose focus. Subsequently, they will gain little value from their coaching session.

To avoid these pitfalls, it’s essential to be very self-aware of the methods and style of communication you use.

The moment you spot an irregularity or hindrance in your communication style, immediately alter your approach to ensure that nothing interferes with the channels of communication between you and your client.

How to Establish Rapport with Your Client

One of the key objectives of the first coaching session is to establish a reasonable level of rapport with your client. The rapport you develop will help generate more profound levels of trust. This will subsequently open the channels of communication moving forward.

Here is a four-step process you can use to establish higher levels of rapport with your client:

Step 1: Encourage Your Client to Talk

The best way to begin building rapport with your client is to encourage them to talk. And the best way to encourage your client to speak is to ask them several quick and easy questions to get the conversation going.

For instance, on the outset, ask your client the following set of questions:

How has your day been? What did you get up to?

How are you feeling about coaching?

Can you tell me what has brought you here today?

How is this important to you right now?

How would you like me to help you out?

What are your expectations?

What are you hoping will change as a result of coaching?

It’s necessary to first ask these kinds of questions because they help set the scene for what’s to come.

No longer will you need to guess as to why your client has come to see you. You will, instead, have a solid understanding of what it is your client wants and needs.

This, subsequently, helps you figure out whether or not your coaching style and expertise is a good fit for this particular client.

Step 2: Ask Deeper and More Probing Questions

Having already established some level of rapport with your client, it’s time now to ask deeper and more insightful questions that will provide you with a little more background information.

Depending on the concerns that your client raised a little earlier, you might, for instance, ask them the following set of questions:

Do you have any role models or people you look up to?

Why do you look up to these people?

What other people are important in your life at this very moment?

How do these people support you? How do you support them?

Do you belong to any groups or organizations? Why are they important to you?

How do you typically go about making a decision? Why do you think this way?

Do you have any career aspirations?

Can I ask about your cultural background?

How do you spend your free time? Do you exercise? Do you have any hobbies?

How do you tend to spend your money?

Now, it’s important to note here that some of these questions will be more relevant than others. However, in one way or another, all these questions are relevant because they provide you with insight into your client’s life, interests, influences, priorities, and circumstances.

It’s, for instance, necessary to uncover which people have the most significant influence on your client’s life. These are, after all, the people that probably have the greatest say in your client’s choices, decisions, and actions.

It’s also important to identify how your client likes to spend their time. This will provide you with clear insights into their hobbies and interests that you can then use to keep them motivated and focused.

There are, of course, many possibilities here. However, your overall objective is to gain a “big picture” overview of your client’s life. This will provide you with those little seeds of information you need to guide your client during upcoming coaching sessions.

In fact, every question you ask will provide you with the insights you need to explore relevant areas of your client’s life — directly related to their concerns.

It’s important to understand that at this stage it’s not about tackling your client’s concerns or guiding them to solve their problems.

It’s instead about getting to a point where you thoroughly understand your client’s life from a variety of angles and perspectives.

The answers to your client’s problems will, in fact, lie hidden in the answers they give you to these questions. You may just need to expand on things progressively during upcoming coaching sessions.

You must, however, be very vigilant to note down every detail that your client shares with you.

Only once all these details have been clearly outlined, will you have the necessary information you need to connect all the dots — to help your client work through their issues in optimal ways.

Step 3: Explore Your Client’s Mindset and Psychology

The third step of this process requires digging a little deeper into the client’s mindset and psychology.

This might include exploring their strengths, weaknesses, insecurities, worldview, perspectives, beliefs and core values. The insights you gain here will provide you with the “whys” for the questions you asked in the previous step.

What’s most relevant at this stage is that you start making connections between your client’s concerns and the mindset they’re adopting to solve their problems.

It’s after all never really about the circumstances we find ourselves in, but rather about the mindset we bring to every circumstance.

For information about unlocking your client’s belief systems and values, please read How to Overcome Limiting Beliefs and How to Transform Personal Values.

These articles do, however, go into a significant amount of depth exploring each topic. You don’t necessarily need to go into this much detail during your first coaching session. In fact, it’s not recommended.

Your objective during your first coaching session is to get a general overview of your client’s mindset. This will build the foundations for future coaching sessions.

You might, for instance, take your client’s concerns into consideration while asking the following questions:

What do you believe about your ability to handle this situation successfully?

What do you believe about others who are involved in this situation?

What do you believe about the situation? (identify assumptions)

Where do you think you are being let down?

Where specifically are you letting yourself down? (identify insecurities and perceived weaknesses)

What do you expect will happen here? Why?

What are you good at? How can you potentially use these strengths to your advantage?

There are a great many questions we could potentially ask here. However, what’s most important is that you ask relevant questions that you get a better understanding of the mindset your client brings to each situation.

Once identified, work with that mindset to help empower your client to overcome their problems and perceived limitations during upcoming coaching sessions.

Step 4: Address Any Anxieties Your Client Might Have

The final step of this process involves addressing any anxieties and/or fears your client might have about the coaching process.

With that in mind, give your client the space and freedom they need to ask you any relevant questions they might have about coaching:

Do you have any questions for me about these coaching sessions?

Are there any concerns you might have that you would like to discuss?

It’s only when your client’s fears have been successfully alleviated will they be ready to fully open up and partner with you moving forward.

Of course, failing to address these issues might lead to unexplained resistance as you move through subsequent coaching sessions.

Unlocking Your Client’s Motivation…

Your final objective as a coach is to leave your client feeling motivated and inspired at the conclusion of their first coaching session.

One way to do this is to share a personal story where you overcame similar odds or adversity.

If, however, you don’t have a personal story to share, then freely share how one of your other clients overcame adversity. Alternatively, recommend a relevant book or share some inspiring quotes.

The key here is to leave your client feeling excited and enthused about their coaching journey.

This might also be an excellent time to provide your client with your commitment and a personal guarantee. Also, don’t forget about your confidentiality agreement.

With these administrative tasks done, conclude your first session by asking your client to read out the following four statements:

I have unlimited potential…

All the answers lie within me…

Anything is possible to do and achieve…

I can do and be anything I choose…

Explain to your client that this is the mindset they must bring to every coaching session. It is, in fact, the kind of mentality they must bring to every situation — to solve any problem.

The final order of business is to identify whether or not your client is committed to making positive changes in their life. Ask them to rank the following set of questions from 0 to 10:

What is your level of desire towards making this change?

What is your willingness to follow through with making this change?

What is your level of commitment towards making this change?

Your client must be at a level seven or above for each one of these questions. And of course, the higher the level, the better.

If for any reason you discover that your client’s level of commitment is not where it should be, then you must help them strengthen their commitment moving forward.

Concluding Thoughts

This initial life coaching session you have with your client builds the foundations for what’s to come.

In fact, this coaching session is the beginning point of the MasterMind Matrix. From here onward, you start digging ever so deeper into your client’s psyche as you work to address client concerns, identify their current reality and evaluate their current reality.

These initial four stages of coaching are pre-planned stages where you work through specific areas that help you get an overall understanding of your client’s life, psyche, and circumstances.

After you successfully work through these four stages of coaching, that is when you start digging deeper into the MasterMind Matrix chart.

Once there, you’re no longer working with a specific plan. You are rather using the MasterMind Matrix chart to help further explore critical areas of your client’s psyche.

While working through the MasterMind Matrix, there are no set rules. Your task simply involves digging in and out of the chart in an attempt to explore very specific areas that can help guide your client in the right direction.

At times this will be a quick and efficient process. However, in other instances, it will take some time to work through blockages and areas of concern.

It’s all kind of like a puzzle where you must keep digging ever so deeper until the moment all the pieces of the puzzle come together. Which is typically when your client has a major “aha” moment.