Coaching Techniques: Asking Life Coaching Questions

coaching techniques: asking life coaching questions

Most of the time, coaching clients have different thoughts and emotions coming in, which may cloud their decision process. One important coaching technique is to listen to your client and ask open-ended questions. Paraphrase to gain clarity on what exactly is bothering them, but make sure not to badger them.

The objective of asking questions is to enable your client to collect their thoughts, gain control over their emotions and be clear regarding their options, choices, decision points, thoughts, ideas and finally their decision.

Help Your Coaching Client By Being the Devil's Advocate

Once the decision is made, question the choice. This time, a useful coaching technique is to play the devil's advocate to their thoughts.

Critique and rationalise, in such a way that they own up to their choices, in which they become fully aware of the repercussions. And since they made the choice, there will be a sense of ownership and follow through. 

Steps in the coaching process to bring about results

Here are some coaching techniques to use when asking coaching questions:

• Step 1 : Calming. Do a breathing exercise to calm them down. Let them destress.
• Step 2 : Rapport. Develop a rapport with your client and ensure you are on the same wavelength and that both of you are actively engaged.
• Step 3 : Writing. Ask him to write down his/her thoughts and translate it to them as an image so you can refer to it during the discussion. You will find that by this time, your client has a better control over their emotions and while writing down their thoughts, some level of clarity is achieved.
• Step 4 : Prioritise and gain clarity. Question each point noted down. Use open-ended questions. Narrow down ambiguous thoughts. Ensure that everything is qualified and prioritised.
• Step 5: Rewrite. Now, your client should be ready to rewrite their thoughts with more clarity and with a different order of priority.
• Step 6: Play the devils advocate by asking why not making/doing the opposite of the choices they have made. Let them think it through and have them respond rationally.
• Step 7: Ask if your client is content with the choices now, or if they would like to rethink them. If they are not content and would like to rethink them, repeat from step 5.