What limits me as a coach?

Janice had been coaching for about a year and she was doing her best to follow the tools she learned in coach training. The first and biggest lesson was to stop telling people what to do. So, she put a lid on any urge to ‘tell’ and instead only asked open questions that gave the client full responsibility, like ‘What do you want?”, “How can you do that?” and “What’s Next?”  Coaching wasn’t very exciting, and Janice was hungry for more depth in those conversations. She felt that she was far from helping clients reach their full potential.  

This is a well-known, oft-repeated story. It is true that the first lesson in coaching is to break one’s habits of problem solving for others and telling them what they should do.

Because telling a client what to do actually limits possibilities while people come to coaching to get beyond their limitations, broaden their thinking and expand their possibilities in work and life.   

We’ve taken it to the extreme

So many coaches will do as Janice did and if they can’t problem solve for the client, then it seems the only option is to be totally hands-off and ask only simple, basic questions.

They’ve taken the rule too far and ended up in a tiny box which itself has limited possibilities. But that box has been created by a misunderstanding or exaggeration about coaching skills and professional coaching standards.

Coaching is about expanding the client’s possibilities

There are so many ways to coach in expansive and transformative ways – so many ways to help clients open inner doors, reflect deeply, change their mindsets, break old patterns, open new possibilities and step into personal power. All led by a coach’s powerful questions and a reflection here and there. If the coach can sense the client’s personal power and how they stop themselves from leveraging that.

But to see another’s power, possibilities and limitations takes work on oneself.

It isn’t necessary to have travelled the same road as your client; but it’s essential that you’ve travelled your own road and broken through some of your own internal roadblocks by shifting how you see and interact with the world

Do your own inner work

Learn for yourself how inner reflection helps you see your limiting thoughts, beliefs and habits. Practice making changes and letting go of old worn-out beliefs or behaviours.

Notice the courage it takes to look within yourself, to find your own disempowering thoughts and dare to change them. Understand what a journey like this feels like. Then you understand that other people’s journeys won’t be the same road, but might be similar in terms of the courage, discomfort and ultimate freedom.

Here are some questions that help on journeys like this.

• What is the story you are telling yourself about yourself or your situation?
• What are your internal rules or limitations?
• How would your values inspire you to do things differently?
• What permission would you need to give yourself to do what you feel is right?

Making observations as a coach can also be helpful

• I heard you say X before and now this sounds like Y, how are X & Y connected?
• You seem stressed, what is going on for you right now?
• I feel like we’re dancing around an important topic.
• It seems like you have hit on an important theme for yourself, what are you learning?

If you feel like your coaching could have a bigger impact, start by investing in your own personal development. That doesn’t mean learning more coaching tools or getting another qualification; it means investing in a coach or teacher that will take you on a powerful internal journey of self-discovery. Or it might be going on a silent meditation retreat or finding mind-expanding experiences to engage in, so you can experience firsthand the brilliance, breadth, depth, magic and possibilities that are available when we look deeply within and have the courage to bring those qualities out to the world.

…and life goes onAdversity Quotient