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.