I’m delighted to have been able to interview Julie Starr, author of The Coaching Manual and director of Starr Consulting.
Today I was sitting down reflecting on my own life and what I had still to achieve and decided that this wasn’t clear to me.
I started to panic and wonder why not, what had to change and what I could do to obtain clarity.
Then it became clear that maybe I didn’t need to know! There in itself was the clarity I needed!
Out in the world and certainly with the surge in personal development there is a great emphasis in attaining peace, happiness and inner fulfilment.
There are articles written on these subjects, feel good quotes like never before shared across social media channels, different techniques introduced to weary souls, life style changes to adopt and ways to create these pinnacles of self enlightenment.
There is also an undercurrent of non-acceptance in anything that could be deemed as negative or not working towards a better outcome in some way.
I do believe in certain ways to self improve but also believe that there is also a great deal to be said in embracing the unknown and uncertain.
When people are unhappy they will frequently think of ways to change this. To come up with a solution and strive to make things better.
The very nature of which can be counter productive. The more that people focus on what isn’t working the more the inner battle can rage and this can increase the frustration and unhappiness that people are trying to avoid in the first place.
What needs to change?
Firstly I think that when people are faced with an unhappy or rocky stage in their life a question is does this need to be fixed or can I accept how things are for now.
It is in this acceptance that there can be a peace of mind and relaxation. In order to feel differently you have to do something some might say. To get in a better place, change the way you think or look ,feel differently and act better.
I don’t agree that this is the always the answer. The media world also creates a road to being whole and pure, almost like a spiritual cleansing.
To eat well, behave well and be well.
There is nothing wrong with this in its self but to live authentically and to do what you want (or not) based on your truest self is maybe a different approach that is not based in fear or guilt for being anything less than perfect.
Whatever this means to you.
If you think about how much there is out in the world that gives you messages to improve your life, be whole and spiritual is it any wonder that you doubt your imperfections, your flaws and weaknesses and above all your vulnerability.
I highly recommend being ok with exactly who you are right now, not doing anything other than be you, Be true to who you are and don’t create a pedestal for yourself that will have you crashing down in a crumpled frustrated pile if you fall from it.
Enjoy your life as it is in all its complicated glory.
For those in the know and for those who are interested in the field of coaching one of the key parts of gaining results and helping people to fundamentally transform their lives will be asking simple and purposeful questions.
There isn’t a rulebook of questions that needs to be adhered to or a cheats guide in how to do this.
Once you have established rapport with a client, built on the trust that is on going and essential for coaching to be useful you will need to then work with the client in establishing an arena for change and what they want to gain from working with you.
I have put together 10 key questions that are simple to deliver, purposeful in their aim and allow the client to reflect on what they would like to see change in their life and also lead into further questioning.
Also and very importantly it allows the client to feel the impact of what your coaching could give them in positive ways.
What area of your life causes you the most frustration?
Coaching is best served at the level of most impact, which is where life isn’t “working” for the client, where they might feel stuck or not sure where to go next and how you as the coach can help.
What do you have some of that you would like more of?
This question hones in on the positive aspects of the clients life, it also allows time for them to reflect on how gaining more of the “good stuff” could be useful for them.
If this time next year nothing had changed in your life how would that be for you?
The idea is that people sometimes will resist change (even though things can get bad for them) and by looking at the consequences of not changing this can be a start in the client taking responsibility for how they could be doing things better or differently
If you were operating at your best what could change for you?
Again this looks at the impact of change, utilising resources and the client stepping into their full potential
What do you need to start taking responsibility for your life?
This is a direct and provocative question that can seem quite challenging. The idea sitting behind it is one of ownership. The coaching relationship is about empowerment and bringing about an adult communication, which will frequently produce an element of the client taking responsibility for their choices and actions or indeed non-action. i.e. not doing.
Is there anything in your life that you really want that no one yet knows?
Quite often the very nature of coaching allows the client an unspoken permission to share what they truly desire, what they are passionate about and what they would love to have – even though they may dismiss it as being rather silly or unimportant
What is stopping you living the life you really want?
This is a key exploratory question that can bring up all sorts of answers from the client. It then starts to create a picture of what they see is their problem, whether that be old and withered beliefs that are still hanging on or other key areas that are limiting the client
Imagine you were living the life you want to, what would be in it?
This is bringing in a hypothetical approach to coaching. This can often bypass the negativity that I am sure you know too well and that can surface in coaching sessions with clients and in ordinary conversations of course!
If you were name one thing that gets in your way what is this?
This narrows the focus of the mind, allows the client to get clarity and get focused, which of course can then be built up on and opened up again – this is especially useful for a client who just sees everything as always awful.
Knowing what you know about yourself what are you overlooking that could be useful?
This is an interesting question, it also positions the client as the expert in their life (which of course they are) it will either give you a real insight from the client in how they see themselves or may throw up more to work with – either way it creates a great opportunity for coaching to happen!
This list is not a compulsive tick box approach to coaching and is not exhaustive.
The main part of questions is that they are purposeful, simple and with intention on finding out more from the client.
Good luck and would be great to hear how you get on…
I was thinking today how people live their lives and the way they do this is quite often based upon the messages that they would have received from parenting.
Within coaching sessions these messages come out in the way that people can self-sabotage what they set out to do and achieve.
This is quite often subconscious and automatic and through coaching we can help people understand in what ways they could be doing this, where this comes from and importantly help them to move forward from some of these self defeating patterns.
A very interesting part of transformational coaching is looking at the realms of Transactional Analysis.
Many people will know the book the games people play by Eric Berne, which brought the idea of TA to the modern world.
Within one part of TA it looks at the idea of injunctions.
What are these?
Simply put they are messages that we will pick up on as children, which are also communicated non-verbally from our parents.
They are unconscious and felt rather than verbalised and conscious. These can be very powerful and also the way we live our lives as adults can also be based on these early messages.
There are in total 12 injunctions that create a way of living.
You may be able to think about some of your own life situations that the above could apply to. This will be no different for clients who come to you as their coach looking for change.
Through coaching conversations within sessions and with clients you as the coach will pick up many of these themes.
This can provide a great place for exploration with your client. You can also be very open with these concepts with clients and ask them how they could be living their lives based on some of the above injunctions.
This is not to say that the client will not have other areas to work on but using the list above can give a real insight into their world and how they could be limiting their potential and actually living their lives based on old patterns and messages from parenting.
TA provides a fascinating area for exploration with clients and can also bring about a huge awareness for them.
In future posts I will share more in these areas.
The next time you find yourself falling into a pattern is it possible that you are tapping into one of these injunctions?
Someone asked me recently how has coaching changed recently? this was a great question.
Rather than keep this secret or I thought it would be useful to share my experience with you all.
Coaching is using the GROW model
The coaching world has shifted, changed and should now be brought up to date. The complexities of peoples goals will not always fit into the GROW model, There is so much more to coaching than just GROW, Somatic coaching, Cognitive behavioral coaching, Transactional analysis, Gestalt Coaching and NLP to name a few.
Coaching is all about goal setting
This is simply not true. Coaching is about helping someone understand what is holding them back and where the stuckness is before you move forward to what they want to change and achieve and it is not useful to ask how will you do that? too quickly in a session.
Coaching is VERY different to counseling
Again, this is untrue. There are many cross over areas. Holding space for a client, allowing them to talk about what it is that they want to without judgement, emotional issues, interpersonal relationships, negative cycles of behavior and also compulsive behaviors and much more can be effectively worked with in the coaching relationship.
You never give advice in coaching
Why would you not? If it is blended with a coaching approach, i.e. open and hypothetical questions, client centered listening, reflection, clarification, feedback and more how is giving advice a problem? There is no point in a client banging their head against a brick wall trying to find the answer. This is not useful.
You need to know exactly what the client wants to work on
Part of being a truly exceptional coach is trusting your intuition, not knowing and taking risks, bringing about a general sense of curiosity for the clients view of their world, connecting with them, creating trust, building rapport and challenging them. Also helping them to create a new way of life. Also a truly skilled coach will not need the comfort zone attached to a set direction to coach in before the session.
You MUST be free of your own issues before you can coach.
Is this setting up yourself as needing to be perfect? Is this not the issue with clients thinking they have to be? Why would you do this also?
It is true that you need to be in the best state and space to coach congruently and with best impact. This does not mean that you have to be an enlightened guru with no issues or life challenges.
You can’t make money from coaching.
Why not? Coaching can be extremely lucrative and can far outweigh the hourly rate that you might get in an office environment. Coaches will charge different amounts but also they wouldn’t need to be a conveyor belt of productivity. You wouldn’t coach for 8 hours a day for example.
This is not the total list but I hope it brings you up to date with some of the areas of coaching that can have the most impact for a client and may start to shift your own thinking.
When I think of coaching there are many ways that I try and sometimes fit it in a box and create a simple description of what it actually is!
Transformational coaching is more than a box shaped approach to helping people move ahead with their life and achieving what they want.
I am currently in the process of having my back garden de weeded, re designed to allow for others to share this created space, and build a place for me to hang out, relax and enjoy nature.
Also to plant vegetables, plants and flowers.
How does this mean anything to coaching you may be asking?
The idea I have is that the client will come to coaching with their life scripts, previous experiences, views of the world and also with a desire to change.
When we start on the coaching exchange and through the various techniques, questioning approaches and models we help the client create a natural space for exploration.
We allow the client to talk about what they want to without challenging them in the initial stages of the conversation.
We would then appropriately and with purpose start to challenge their version of reality (if it is not working for them)
The cross over here is that we allow the client to have a richness of experience in his or her own life.
This can be viewed as a fertile ground for developing new ways of being, new ways of thinking and acting.
This could be a freshly dug fertile soil with potential for growth.
Further coaching questions to loosen up the client’s own map of reality can further prepare them for the change.
We can start to “plant seeds” of opportunity with the client. We can ask them what they truly want to achieve, how they see their full life potential and what this means to them.
With the level of deep transformation that we facilitate we make sure that the client is in prime condition for their lives to flourish and grow. Like our own said garden to enable the best conditions for life to take hold and continue to expand and flourish.
Coaching may take us down the path of helping the client create accountable actions and setting goals for achievement.
These need to be worked with, put into action, tried and tested and pliable to allow for change if needed.
The garden is also the same, it doesn’t just suddenly transform into a work of art or a colourful plot full of flowers and plants.
It takes time; it takes attention, water, sunlight, nourishment and maintenance.
Also with a degree of flexibility to allow for new ideas and creation in what we want it to be like.
One thing I have also made sure is that my garden space is also conducive to allow for others to share this. I have a fire pit for chilly autumn nights for people to sit round and talk into the early hours, tables and chairs and an area created for meditation and reflection.
Is this not the same as coaching?
The clients actions and change will also effect others in potentially positive ways, there is a certain “sharing” of this change process with others close to them and without doubt the whole coaching process is reflective and allows space for thinking more deeply about the impact of change.
With care and sustenance the garden can be transformed.
The client’s life can also be transformed in magnificent ways with them at the center of the design of their life.
In coaching there are many questions that raise a hypothetical awareness to a session. In other words we ask questions to a client that look at the potential of achievement and what this could be like for them.
The goal hasn’t yet been reached, the outcome not yet achieved and the client will still be looking at what they have to do in order to get what they want to.
A useful and in my experience very powerful technique for helping someone “experience” the future as if they have already achieved it is called future pacing.
This comes from the world of Neuro Linguistic Programming and can be used as the next step once the initial and desired outcome has been talked about and decided upon from the coaching session.
The first time I tried this technique I did say to myself this is just a bit crazy and won’t really be useful.
I was sure that my client would think it was just too way out for them to really buy into the experience.
As I became more experienced at coaching and helping people transform their lives I started to believe in my abilities to make a difference and believed that the client would get good results.
This approach has always worked and I make sure I go into the session prepared and confident in what I am doing.
To make it clear I will break the process down step by step.
1. Have the client describe their outcome in sensory-specific detail and with the date they will have it. What are they seeing, hearing, feeling etc?
2. Identify locations in the room that represent that present and the future time when they have the outcome
3. Walk the client out to the future location and have them recall the outcome in detail
4. Have them look back at the last step they took and ask what they last step they had to take was to get to their present location.
5. Once they have described that step, make notes of it and ask them to step into that last place.
6. Then repeat the process step by step to the present.
7. Ask what the client got from that journey and then coach from the results
It is a very useful technique that works with the unconscious mind and will install that the client has already achieved what they had set out to do.
The key is that you as the coach look back at the past situation using a past tense in the words and questions used and that the situation as it is now that it has been achieved is talked about in the present tense.
This encourages the unconscious mind to trust the process and believe in what is happening.
To me this is like time travel for the mind and the clients that I have worked with in this way have loved the exercise and very importantly got amazing results in hugely positive ways.
Is it time travel? No of course not but it may well be the next best thing in helping someone to achieve what they want to.
