How to respond when your coaching client show up and says,” I have nothing to talk about….”

Couple of weeks before, one of my client show up for online coaching conversation. Everything was set as per mutual convenience and the session begins with Greetings and asking well-being of each other.

Suddenly my client said, “I don’t know what to talk about.”

When such thing happens, that too during online session, it can be tricky for a coach how to respond. A series of fears get triggered within, fears that we are not good at what we do, or we start feeling in adequate or feel run out of things to coach your client, or how can we justify the coaching fees that we have charged for just a formal talk.

I also went through multiple of such fears, as I haven’t been in such situation before. Had it been one to one personal session, could have derived some clue from client’s body language and would have shifted the topic of discussion to allow my client to regain equilibrium.

It was absolutely new experience for me. I need to handle this anyhow.

After couple of deep breathing, I could regain my calmness and I told to myself it is really important to be comfortable with silence. Sometimes that will happens, and even necessary. We can’t always avoid these kind of silences and working through it to be comfortable.

When client become absolutely silent or blank, try to give enough time to catch up. Don’t try to force the silence by asking open ended question. Instead, shift the topic of discussion and as a coach, take a lead to talk more and allow your client to give few responses like- nodding head, or brief smile, or short answer like yes or no. Allow, things to come to normalcy, for you as well as for client.

If you don’t take charge of the situation quickly, the situation would appear to be  turning towards therapy and as a coach you are not a therapist, you need to pull your client out of this situation and encourage to speak or share something, may be not relevant to the issue for which coaching is sought after.

I share this experience here, because after 15 minutes, I made my client to speak and share a lot.

They are human first, Coach later.

 

The best life coaches are not perfect.  They’re equally imperfect.  

They’re flawed, distorted, erroneous, grappling, battling, reaching, and searching.  Because they are human first, coach later.

Although being in their own authentic selves they know well from within, there will be times when they need to take a big dose of their own coaching wisdom, reach out for help or inspiration, battling with their own doubts, or hit that yoga mat or meditation chair, or journal with tears flowing and with a vulnerable heart to ask ‘where am I?’ or “how to move out from this?’ or “How can I love myself more than I did ever before?

If you wish to become a wonderful life coach, it simply means that at the core of your heart you strive to live your each day as your authentic self – with all your flaws, failings, distortion, errors, messy tears and unknown fears thrown in.

Nothing to misinterpret, Best Life Coaches are indeed wonderful people. 

They have a passion for life, people, experiences and adventure to do something different. They’re readers, developers, believers, communicators and learners. 

Over and above all, they are just human like us, they don’t have “all together- all the time”.

We all are awkwardly placed socially!

We all are awkwardly placed socially!

It’s the side effect of pandemic. We have lost touch with our peers, we have been deprived of interactions, social mingling.

Covid-19 outbreak has disrupted academic year, no classes, no schools, and cancellation of examination all across the country. To ensure that students don’t miss out on their studies, schools have shifted to online classes, forcing students to work with laptops and mobiles.

There have been number of views are in discussion, if this distance learning for school going children would keep them away from developing certain social skills? Whether increased screen time is harmful for students? There are arguments on both the sides and a convincing argument is children were addicted to screens well before Covid-19.

What about grownups? People are separated from a social interaction- by situation or by choice- people are feeling more anxious, isolated, awkward and intolerant on certain aspects. It seems we are losing our agility and sensitivity in social circumstances, whether we are aware of it or not. The signs are visible, in every behavior of us, at various life situations. There is some kind of social audacity cropping up which can become entrenched if we fail to recognize and don’t take steps to minimize it.

We all are wired internally to remain social and we long for someone’s company. When we are cut off socially, our brain start reading this signal as threat. Felling lonely, alone or isolated is as much like a biological phenomenon as we feel hungry or thirsty. Failing to interact with other people-friends, relatives leads to negative physiological effects.

Although, we are with our loved ones at home, our spouse, children, parents, siblings etc., still we feel sadness, irritated, worn out, anger because you are not getting full range of human interaction what we are supposed to get. It’s just similar to not getting balanced diet.

Daily and regular interaction with others gives us sense of belonging and a kind of security. That’s why keep your social skills alive in this unsocial times and kill the social awkwardness.

 

 

Should you go for coaching?

A question may come in your mind, should you go for life coaching?

Is it really worth investing time and money?

These questions are very natural for everyone who are hearing, repeatedly, on a social media platform about a Life coach and Life coaching.

If we leave aside last 8 to 10 years of period, for a common man the term ‘coach’ and coaching was associated with sports field only. This is more due to very wide and detailed coverage of sports on electronic media.

Along with players people started recognizing the coach associated with the game.

World cup football is an event where people started admiring the club, players and the coach associated with the team. Even the playing clubs and sports body have stretched far beyond their length and breadth to search best coaches for their teams and who helps team to perform the best.

In sports, it is well accepted that even a star player also need coach to help him to perform well, consistently. Sports has disapproved the belief that only weak performer need coach.

A coach helps team to perform well and guide them to lift their performance game after game. But, the coach need not be always a better performer than his players. But the coach should have experience to perform reasonably well in the area or the field in which he is coaching.

Secondly, an outstanding performers need not be a coach or need not have the ability to coach others. They can be a role model or an inspirational figure, but may not be able to help others to improve in a specific area to become high performer or a start performer.

To put it in a proper way, coaches are specialists.

Like in the game of cricket, earlier days, there used be only one coach who used to coach the players on every aspect of the game. With the time game has changed, the game challenges have changed, the bar of performance has increased, he overall stake on the tournament have increased multifold, that is why nowadays we hear about fielding coach, bowling coach, fitness coach etc. for a single team. If the format of the game is changed, perhaps the selection of coaches would also change. Finally, it’s all boil down to specialists.

The same things holds good for business too. Although, we accept in sports, coaches are required to perform well, in business scenario we still feel it’s the weaker who needs coach.

Coaching is an investment in someone or group of people who have the potential to perform far better, than what they are currently doing. While, most of the managers and leaders recognize this aspects but not able to practice. There are number of reasons for this, not just managers or leaders at fault.

 

In some cases ‘coachees’ see the appointment of a coach for them is reflecting poorly on them. They would think that if they were perceived as a good performer, they wouldn’t need coaching.

If we extend coaching further to performance appraisal situation, in our present system, performance appraisal is how well an employee has performed in the recent past and not how much potential he has to become a star performer and high achiever. In this case coaching is very important to change the thought process.

Also, on the part of organization , in the present turbulent and volatile situation, it’s hard to make decision how much an organizations should invest in coaching as people may not stay longer or de-employed due to strategic acquisition or merger may take place, or overall business model may change.

Further, it is difficult to help people to achieve to their full potential at workplace, when outside the work place they are not managing their other life challenges well. Different   life challenges can occur at different phase of individual’s life journey. This challenges are required to be examined and evaluated separately, outside the career or work-life balance conflicts or trade-offs being sought for.

This is exactly where the comprehensive life coaching is required and will help. That is why Life coaching is very much needed as it goes much beyond helping to develop new way and new approach for work in line with one’s vision for life and acquire the necessary skills to negotiate all that stands in the way of realizing the life vision and achieving set life goals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Give the coach a test drive !!

Most coaches offer a complimentary interview session. During the consultation, try to get a feel for the Coach’s style.

Some coaches have a style to push you and hold you accountable for your actions, they have everything planned and scheduled and they go according to the schedule chalked out. While others may prefer to allow you to gain ground according to your own time frame and proceed with sessions where you always feel engaged and involved.

It’s very important to know what your intuition tell you about the coach.

 Do you feel there is a good fit between the coach and you?

 Did you feel at ease during the session and gained enough faith to share with him the information about your background?

Did you feel you were heard patiently and you had enough chance to present your case? I mean did the coach ‘get’ you who you are?

Did you sense that your coach was curious and have asked questions showing interest in your case?

If you nod your head in affirmation for majority of above, it means you are on right track to get your coach.

 

 

Life coaching mistakes, coaches like me, often make.

Working as a life coach, I have realized and learned from my personal experience, I have committed number of mistakes about which no body trained me before or I did not realize it as a mistake until I committed.

Many of these mistakes are quite innocent and some could have avoided with little bit extra awareness.

I will list out some of these life coaching mistakes I have committed and my realization of the impact they might have on the client and the coaching effectiveness.

1.       Making quick assumptions about the client and his circumstances without getting deep in to big picture. Also making assumptions about client’s beliefs, feelings or perceptions, or client’s weakness. Life coach must have a comprehensive understanding about client’s situation before making any conclusion.

2.      Not listening intently and not able to understand the spoken words and the underlying feeling behind the words and the intention behind those words.

3.      Thinking narrowly and not taking enough consideration of wider circumstances of clients that made client to behave particularly in certain situation and not the resultant of current circumstances alone is responsible.

4.      Assuming your point of view is equal to client’s point of view. Each individual is different and hence they see the world from their perspective and it is necessary to understand their perspective.

5.      Taking responsibility of client’s success and failures. As a coach we have to empower the client and helping them to take the responsibilities of their life and their decisions. A client must become accountable otherwise they will fail to gain from their coaching experience.

6.      Getting sidetracked from the main subject. Sometime client may deviate from the main subject unintentionally, a coach need to prompt client to come back on main subject.

7.      Promising client results. As a coach you should not promise results but you can provide the client with the possible outcomes. Also, need to explain the client that the every possible outcome is dependent on client’s commitment to bring changes they desire in their life.

8.     Frustrated with client’s progress. A coach should not expect too much too soon. Clients take time to show the visible progress. Try to see the roadblocks ahead in client’s path and help to resolve them.

9.      Investing emotions in your client. A life coach must always remain neutral and never invest their emotions in client’s circumstances. Coach emotions will create a “FOG’ kind of situation and will cause distraction from the main subject.

10.Getting affected by client’s criticism. We all are human and everything may not go always as per plan. Sometimes, client may not be happy with his progress and may share some comment. Life coach need to remain calm and understand the situation and collect the criticism.

 

I am not a coaching institute or an authority to write a coaching guidelines, however I thought sharing my experience would help someone to provide an effective coaching sessions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to get coaching clients?

Last week I received a message from a life coach, wanted to have few words with me about coaching practice.

We initiated contact between us, first through a normal phone call and later through a video call. In a short time, we could get along with each other and were able to converse freely.

I conveyed to him through our conversation, ‘It is great to know that you are getting started as a life coach. Coaching can be rewarding career if done with proper planning.’

It will allow you an opportunity to grow financially as well as professionally.

But, there is an issue which everyone faces, ‘How to get clients?’

Like in the field of sports, people look for coach to perform well and do better, same is the case with other areas of life. People want to do better, people want to excel in their field.

You need to identify such people. Find out, how you can locate them? Where such people hang out regularly?

But the most important question is ‘How?’

It’s sad to know, often people start life coaching business without a clue about how it can be set up.

The things get worse when you are not able to find any clients. You will get disappointed. Some will give up, some will survive through.

You may design your website nicely, with good contents but that is just not enough if you cannot drive traffic to it.

Whatever marketing efforts you do, it must reach to your prospect buyers.

I feel personally, over 70% new coaches feel overwhelmed, because they are being told to do 100 different things, and they really don’t know what will work.

Unless people know about you being there, you will lose all probable opportunities that would have there, for you. What you need to do so that you standout in a crowded place.

You need to find out what would work best for me so that I become visible to my prospective clients.

 

How to price your coaching services.

How to price your Coaching Services!

There are a hundreds of coaching fields, from Business Coach to Wellness coach. From Health Coach to Career Coach. From Life Coach to Executive Coach. The list will go on.

However, really there are only two types of coaches – One who makes living from coaching income and one who cannot.

As a new comer in coaching field, or as a beginner, you will be tempted to charge hourly basis for your coaching services. It’s quite natural, because you have to make living out of it. However, the world perceive it differently. If you are well known established coach, people will pay you per session basis.

But, as beginner, if you are trying to become full-time coach and want to grow, you need to develop a coaching package instead of one-off services.

While selecting a coaching package, try to understand that your client has a specific problem and with the help of your coaching services, your client is going to solve his problem.

In this situation, the number of hours or number of sessions are not going to be discussed. You are charging for a specific problem of your client.

Let me share how I thought of packaging my coaching services. According to me I have devised two kinds of coaching packages.

1.      focused on one result or one outcome

2.    focused on ongoing result

When positioning your coaching package, you must make it clear to your prospective client, if your content is results-focused or focused on ongoing-support system.

It depends upon how you want your coaching services would be known for.

If you are happy for getting pat on your back at the end of every session and you are happy in teaching the people, you should go for result focused coaching.

If you interested in building relationship and interested in knowing how someone’s business is shaping up and you want to become supportive to your client throughout, you should go for ongoing result focused coaching.

There is no clear cut separation or demarcation. You can offer both kinds.

You may start with result focus based coaching and once your client is done with that you can offer ongoing support.

 

 

 

 

 

Coach and Coachee characteristics.

 Coaching is a formal one-on-one relationship between a coach and a coachee.

In a coaching relationship, a coach “collaborate to assess and understand the coachee and his or her development needs.  Coach will challenge current constraints of a coachee for him to explore new possibilities. Coach will demand accountability and support from coachee to reach his goals and continuous development.

Both the coach and coachee possess characteristics that might facilitate or impede a successful coaching relationship.

These characteristics may include personality traits, work and life experiences, or level of commitment to learning from a coachee.

In fact, these characteristics are what both- a coach and a coachee bring to the relationship before the actual coaching interaction starts and they set in motion the coaching relationship.

The bonding between a coach and a coachee in a coaching relationship will decide the outcomes of the coaching engagement.

when coaching will fail?

Like any other process, coaching is also a process.  Because, it is a process it can be effective or ineffective. There can be many factors that can impede its effectiveness. 

Things that dilutes the impact of coaching could be the fault of the coach himself, the coachee, or the organization’s culture. 

We can identify some of the broad issues that contribute to undesired results coming out of a coaching assignment. 

The after effects of a poor coaching assignment can be

v  Absolute no change in behavior.

v  Or the change that evaporates soon after coaching is over.

v  Cynicism-not able to see anything good in coaching.

v  A strong firm belief that behavior can’t be changed.

v  People try to disguise their habitual behaviors smartly so that they don’t ‘get caught.’

It is difficult to predict when coaching will be successful, but you can easily see the signs that it will fail.

If the person being coached resents the efforts to change him or her, or if the person starts thinking that only reason to change is that someone else wants it, then also the process won’t work. 

If the person is looking for a quick fix by reading a book or attending a workshop, rather than building skills through practice coaching will fail.

If the coach lacks the personal skills and the business mindset to nurture success in the work environment, then also the coaching process will fail.

For example, if the work environment is getting spoiled for people to work, and on psychologically ground, if trust is absent and vulnerabilities are exploited, then the coaching will not be able to bring desired change.

 

 

 

How helplessness can be overcome?

When we fail, or when life delivers us a setback, we become so hopeless that our immediate response is to give up.

It’s an easy trap to fall into and many of us might have already.

You can probably relate to, when you’ve been unsuccessful, and that experience has discouraged you from trying again.

Learned helplessness is a trap that anyone can fall into. But, anyone can get better at handling adversity, and avoid the trap of learned helplessness.

People with an optimistic explanatory style interpret adversity as being local and temporary, while those with a pessimistic explanatory style see these events as more global and permanent. Their beliefs then directly affect their actions.

So the next time you have a setback, stop and consider for a moment how you’re explaining it to yourself – optimistic or pessimistic explanatory?  It could make all the difference.

What are your coaching charges!

 I am neither an established coach nor a well settled coach where my coaching sells on my name.

I don’t know why I am writing this post, because why people should read it?  I can very well keep my experience with me without sharing.

However, I thought if my post can help at least one emerging coach to take a learning from my experience, I will assume my job is done.

When clients browse through your website they feel interested and appreciate the contents of your website. They get in touch with you for more details. So far so good.

When they come know about your coaching charges, example-your coaching charges are $100/hour – the prospective clients start dropping off.

As a coach, you must understand the client’s point of view, then you will be able to get the answer why you are not getting enough paid clients.

As fresh or as a beginner coach, charging by an hour is fallacy to step into a coaching world.

To understand ‘WHY’ behind this, it is very important to understand how people perceive price in their mind? How clients create value for coaching in their mind?

People compare like with like!

When they perceive your coaching charges as $100/hour, they compare what other things of their interests are available at $100.

It’s absolutely possible that the things they think about are nowhere comparable with your coaching. But, still for the people $100 is a value and they think is this actually worth it?

It’s quite natural and we can’t blame people for that. The reason is when they compare your coaching with things of their interests, they believe that things are tangible- they can see it, feel it – they know what they are getting it. On the other hand if you look at coaching – its intangible- you can’t see it, can’t feel it, you really don’t know what you are going to get in one hour. Moreover, you can’t compare one coach with other because no two coaches are identical.

The point to be noted here is when people perceive your coaching charges people starts thinking what else I can buy for that hourly charges. What it would give me worth if I buy that one hour of coaching /

They will have number of questions in their mind- are they going to achieve the results that they want to achieve? Are they going to get what they have come for? Or it is just going to get extended indefinitely? How long I will keep paying this charges again and again and again?

Let us think about the other side of it. Let us assume some people would overcome this questions and would sign for your hourly coaching session.

The study says, the client stays for 3 to 4 hours on an average, it means effectively 3 to 4 coaching sessions. Which means, the coach may not be able to deliver the desired value to client that has been promised.

Hence, as a coach when you are not able to get enough attention from your client – not more than 3 to 4 hours – it clearly means that your clients are not staying enough to get results.

If they are not going to stay enough to get the results, they are not going to give you testimonials. They are not going to refer you to others.

Ultimately, what it means that your clients are not going to stay enough with you, you are constantly going to search clients. You are not going to gain anything absolutely from your previous clients.

It will be difficult to sell further coaching and you getting established as a coach because your client has not got a result with you.

And, this is not because you are an incompetent coach but because in order to get settled in coaching business you have attached a value as a coaching fees and not clearly emphasized on the worth of coaching.