Coaching and giving advice are known “enemies”.
They don’t go together.
As coaches, we don’t give advice.
Except when we do.
And then we beat ourselves up over it, because after all, we’re supposed to be coaching and not telling someone what to do. I’ve heard this from coaches so many times. It makes them feel bad about their sessions.
Let me clear something up once and for all: Coaching and giving advice DO go together.
But in a very specific way and probably not in the way you are using it right now. Often, when coaches share their frustration about their inability to stay in the coaching frame, they give advice simply because it’s easier. Because they get stuck and don’t know how to get to the core of the conversation.
Because they’ve been taught that they have to let the client walk away with an action plan every session. Because they missed part of the conversation and didn’t know what to ask next.
None of these are good reasons to start sharing your wisdom.
Those are simply indicators that you are missing a system for getting your clients results and knowing how to get them through transformation no matter the topic and no matter the type of client you are dealing with.
And it not only leaves you feeling bad, you’re also not getting as great an outcome as you could have if you had stuck with coaching first. So let me tell you what to do instead and then I’ll let you know where it’s really powerful to co-create through providing your clients with insight and advice.
If you want to give advice, the most powerful way to do this is through providing your client with a menu list to choose from OR make it tentative: “this is what worked for me”. That way your client can choose what fits and what doesn’t fit.
It also helps to get your client’s creative juices flowing and they’ll start seeing their own options and possibilities. The BEST time to give advice is when your client has out-framed their problem. What that means, is that they have stepped out of their old way of thinking, understand how they were keeping themselves stuck, and are able to step back from it. They are no longer coming FROM that kind of thinking.
If you start giving advice before that, you will miss the opportunity to help them move beyond their old way of thinking, even if you think you know what they need.
Get your client to understand the STRUCTURE of their problem first, get them to talk ABOUT the structure (what it’s costing them, what distortions you’re detection in their thinking, etc). What this does, is that your client can become the observer, which is where they are open for something new.
This is where the “the client knows best” really comes into play: You do not know how your client is experiencing their problem, you have to tease it out of them through asking questions. It’s where you don’t jump to conclusions or you don’t use your own experiences. You don’t have to figure out why your client is feeling lost, overwhelmed, angry, sad in a specific situation.
You also don’t have to solve anything just yet. You just uncover the problem.
And once you have that, you can start co-creating a new, desired state (of thinking and feeling), so they have access to new behaviors. Very often, your client doesn’t quite know what to think and feel instead. Or what to do differently. Especially not if you are there to help them go through a transformation, the new actions are going to be way out of their comfort zone, and they may not even have a concept of what it would look like and feel like to show up differently.
That’s where you need to help them.
You can give them a menu list of different ways in which they could think, feel and behave. If your client has felt insecure, for example, their obvious desired state would be to feel secure.
But so much more is possible!
What if they are able to forget about themselves altogether? How would they show up then? Limitless? Excited? Passionate? Playful?You can start leading your client into what’s possible for them, share your own experience or the experience of others who have been successful in the area in which they want change.
You can help them uncover new, more empowering beliefs that will serve them better. Tell stories, give them ideas, get them excited about what’s possible!
What I shared above is one of the small shifts that I address with my clients in The Quantum Leap Coach System™.
I also show you how you can help someone see the structure of their problem, identify what patterns in that problem need to change, and then how to create that change on a neurological level, so the change in behavior comes natural to your client.
To give you an example of how that system works, my client Steve recently lost 27 pounds in 2 months. We worked on uncovering HOW he wasn’t sticking to a diet and worked on creating a transformation on a neurological level.
We never worked on the strategy, he simply started following what he already knew. That’s the power of first uncovering what is getting in the way, clearing that, and installing more empowering beliefs.
Email me if you’re interested in this program and we will chat to see if you’re a good fit; if so, we can get you started right away.