How to get the most out of life coaching
How to Get the Most Out of Your Life Coaching
I want you to benefit greatly from the time we have together and also during the time between our calls. This brief guide is what most of my clients do to maximize the value from their coaching with me.
Tip #1 – Make A List of What You Really Want In Life
Coaching works best when you have clear goals that are based on your needs and values. If you are not sure what your goals should be, we can discuss them during our call.
Tip #2 – Get To Re-Know Yourself
Working with a coach is a healthy way to grow. Most clients hire a coach to accomplish several specific goals. Yet, with coaching, do not be surprised if you discover new parts of yourself or if you find your goals adjusting themselves to who you really are. This discovery process is natural, so you do not need to rush it, just realize it will likely happen. Accelerated personal and professional growth is the hallmark of being coached.
Tip #3 – Double Your Level Of Willingness
Part of working with me as your coach is that I will ask a lot of you. Not too much, I hope, but certainly more than you have been asked recently. I need you to be willing to experiment with fresh approaches and be open to redesigning the parts of your life that you are able to right now. This is so you can more easily reach your goals and live in an integrated and fulfilled personal and professional life, using the gifts you have enjoying life as it was meant to be enjoyed. And before this sounds like a post card, I want you to be willing to:
- Change your behavior, a lot
- Start telling the absolute truth, regardless
- Experiment and try new things
- Start treating people much, much better
- Remove all sources of stress in your life
- Stop tolerating or suffering in your life
- Redesign how you spend your time
- Get the support you need to handle a problem
- Re-look at the assumptions/decisions you have made
- Raise your personal standards to be very, very high
- Set goals that are much, much bigger
Tip #4 – Use Your Coach as a Resource, Not As an Answer
I have been trained to listen, inspire, educate, manage, and guide you. I initiate conversations, share ideas, make requests, help clarify your thinking and support your decisions. I do not have the answers, you do. I will help you discover them for yourself.
Tip #5 – Be On Time for Your Sessions and With Your Fee
It is not an exaggeration to say that you will probably reach your goals faster if you are on time with me for sessions and fee payment. To be on time for our phone session is to be there (rested, present, and ready to work) EXACTLY at the prearranged time. Use a digital alarm clock if you need to. Payment for coaching services is due in advance for the month on the agreed date. If money is tight, use that challenge as the immediate focus of your coaching sessions until handled. Life is too short to be late.
Tip #6 – Lead the Session. You Know What You Want
It is your goal and your vision. It is your life. It is your problem. It’s your opportunity. So get what you want out of each session. Don not wait for me to initiate. Come to each session with a list of questions, a concern, or an opportunity you want advice about and/or a problem you are ready to solve. Now I can help you.
Tip #7 – Relentlessly Get Your Needs Met
Needs like air, water, shelter, love need to be met. But there are other needs as well which, when not met, keep you from expressing your values, reaching your goals and living your vision. Needs are not an option.
Tip #8 – Inspire Me In Good Times And Bad
I need to be inspired by you, your actions and what is happening in your life. It is easy when things are going well, but how do you inspire me (or yourself) when you have hit a snag? By being human, fully communicating about your feelings, by listening to the coaching and getting back in the saddle when you are ready. I want to be inspired by you, not impressed.
Tip #9 – Get Yourself Heard
Being fully listened to (“gotten” in coaching lingo) is an integral aspect of coaching. The more you are fully heard, the more you can accomplish. So make sure I hear all of what you cannot articulate fully. All you really want in life is to be fully gotten.
Tip #10 – Under-Promise, Don’t Over-Promise
Sometimes you may find yourself promising yourself and me too much. I ask that you do not do this. Experience has shown that most of my clients do better promising less and accomplishing more. Playing catch-up to too many promises and to too many people robs you of energy. Promise little, produce more, enjoy the surplus.
Tip #11 – Tell Others about Being Coached
Your coaching should not be a secret. You may find it empowering to share what you are beaming about and accomplishing with your coach. Remember, you are the lucky one to have a coach to work with. Nothing worth doing is worth doing alone.
Tip #12 – Come To Your Coaching Call Prepared With An Agenda
Have a written list of things you want to share and discuss. On this list, include things like:
- Successes and wins that you have had during the week
- Report on the homework you completed
- Problems you faced and how you handled them
- Advice you want from me about a situation
- What you are currently working on and how it is going
- New skills you want to develop
- Insights, a-ha’s and new awareness which excite you
- Strategies you wish to develop
- Having this agenda helps you get what you want from the call
Tip #13 – Enjoy Our Call
We have work to do together, clearly, but feel free to enjoy the call with me. After several sessions, you may find that we take a little time to catch up on those parts of your life that mean a lot to you or you may want to share something personal and confidential. And after several months (perhaps sooner), you may find that we even laugh a lot during the call – at life, how you have grown, how things happen. Coaching calls are not gabfests, but they are enjoyable, for both of us. What I mean is that coaching does not need to be intense or an effort for you to produce the miracles you know are possible. But feel free to set the tone of the calls and I will respect what you need.
Tip #14 – Keep Yourself Well Between Our Sessions
Coaching can require energy: emotionally, intellectually and physically. Given this, I want you to take extraordinary care of your well-being while being coached. Only you know what this looks like, but I suggest you go much further than you ever have in this regard. The place to start is to develop a list of 10 Daily Habits that keep you well. Some of the habits my clients have developed into a routine are:
- Take a walk
- Eat more vegetables
- No caffeine, drugs
- Reduce fat intake
- Meditate
- Start being early
- Read
- Under promise
- No sugar abuse
- Listen to great music
- Exercise
- Tell the truth
- Floss
- Handle a completion
- Write in your journal
Tip #15 – Do Your Fieldwork Each Week
This is not homework like in grade school. These are tasks, actions, results or changes you are telling yourself and me that you will do your best to complete before our next call. You must apply yourself and use the homework to help you achieve your personal and business goals.
