The Life Coaching process, overall, can be extremely deep, and fulfilling for my clients and I wanted to share a quick snapshot of what one can expect on the initial coaching session. Rarely will my clients experience a lot of me telling them what they SHOULD or OUGHT to do. That’s not my place in our coaching relationship. So there is no personal ulterior motive or personal agenda in any session. My sessions are, overall, guided by the client. Much like a therapy session, I use the Socratic approach to help my clients dig deep inside themselves by asking strong practical questions. Unlike psychotherapy, my goal is to motivate you to take action and identify things in your life that have or haven’t worked to help better plan your life goals and achieve success. Here are a select handful of questions I ask my clients on the initial session so that we can discover in what direction we should go, moving forward, on other sessions.
1. Why do you feel that you need a life coach?
Every Life Coach will (or should) ask this question. It’s an obvious question that helps us uncover the initial motivation of seeking the guidance of a life coach. It also helps identify where our potential clients are at in their understanding of what life coaching is so we can discern whether or not, one, if life coaching is the proper fit to help them achieve what they want, and, two, if we are the right coach for their needs.
2. How’s that going for you?
This is a gentle question, a soft prod into how deep is the specific issue brought up in Question #1. We’re typically able to uncover completely separate issues my client wasn’t consciously thinking about that could have been limiting them. We’re able to attack those head on (these are called limiting beliefs, an important term my clients learn through coaching).
3. How long has this been going on?
This lets me know how far these issues have been a part of their life while showing my client, front-and-center, how long they’ve been living this way. It helps us identify patterned behavior that will need to be overcome through our coaching relationship.
4. What have you tried to do about it?
Always important to uncover if there are any tools that are already working or, conversely, the specific tools that are failing.
5. How’d that work out?
A continuation of Question #4 – this shows both of us what has/hasn’t worked and the consequences or opportunity those efforts created.
6. What happens if it doesn’t change?
This question is a partner of Question #7, letting my client visualize a future where nothing changes. This question is designed as a wake-up call to show the client how important it is to stop living the way they have.
7. How does that make you feel?
This is the deepest question of all. The entire time we’ve been thinking logically about certain circumstances revealed in the session. Some issues the client may not have realized they were dealing with. Turning away from logic and looking inward to the heart and soul, we’re able to come to an agreement that something has to change!
8. What should we do?
And this is where the fun begins! Armed with the knowledge of what needs to change, we’re able to team up and figure out, together, what action plan needs to take place to get the momentum rolling for positive permanent growth!
It is important to note, again, that not everyone gets asked every single question, or in this order. My clients show me, through conversation, what they need and we develop an action plan together.
Are you ready for your initial life coaching session? Are you ready to answer these tough questions? Let’s get to work: CONNECT
Life Coach Tommy is a Certified Life Coach based out of Sherman Oaks, CA and serves Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. You can get back to the home page by clicking HERE