As a practicing coach, someone with an interest in coaching or for those who just are at the stage of starting with clients and taking those first intrepid steps, I wanted to share what I see is a common challenge in the world of coaching.

Clients will come to a coaching session with their complex lives, beliefs, values and so much more.

This is where coaching can help people to unpick how they are doing things, how they are thinking and behaving and where they are not getting the results that they desire.

So far so good.

Within the art of coaching there are key skills that the practiced coach will need to bring in with client work, which includes simple and purposeful questioning, learning centered listening and holding space for the client to talk about what they need to and what they want to improve or change.

Again this is all good so far.

Where coaches can trip up is by asking too many questions and unpurposeful questions that have no meaning for the client. Also for many there can be the idea that as a coach it is their job to get results, make sure that these can be seen in the session and that any pain or frustration is removed entirely from the clients life.

I remember when I was coached (way back in the dusty old days before coaching had taken on transformational approaches).

I had been trying to work on a hazy goal of getting fitter. I was aware that I was not happy with my lack of fitness in my life and wanted this to change.

Where would coaching have the best impact? In transformational coaching we would firstly find out what getting fitter could mean, how this would impact the client and also what is the stuckness that is preventing them from changing.

There could be a number of reasons for not moving forward according to the client that could include fear of change, fear of rejection, not knowing where to start, impact on time and so much more.

However the coach immediately sprang into action and said how can you get fitter? What can you do? What options do you have to get there? What will you do? And the classic coaching question, what else?

The “what else’ question was fired at me from all angles and I felt hemmed in, unable to move with the coaching spotlight glaring at me from all sides.

I felt coached into a corner with no escape.

Was this useful?

At first take up yes. However after a full round of what else I became increasingly frustrated and dismissive of the coaching process.

The feeling I had was not being helped and supported but rather interrogated into trying to come up with a new way of thinking and possible ways to achieve what I wanted to.

Here is the deal breaker. I didn’t know what else I COULD do!!

This was not useful and I felt that in fact the coach had not understood my pain and frustration but merely wanted to by pass this in order to get to a result for them.

Sometimes what else can be useful but this in my opinion is one of the most overused two words in coaching.

It simply isn’t useful to coach in this way, which can break rapport, lead the client into frustration and get them banging their head against walls trying to come up with options to please the coaches agenda and leave the session with a nice tidy action plan.

What else has its place and this place needs to be worked into a coaching session along with the finding out firstly how the client is operating from their map of the world and what leaves them feeling stuck and unable to operate in the most optimal way for them.

We want to help clients experience the journey and their lives in all their complicated journey, not simply coach them into corners.