Coaches are people who help others to achieve the clarity they need to take needed necessary for achieving success in their lives. There are Coaches that are into general ‘Life Coaching’, such Coaches help to Coach People to achieve success in different areas of their lives.
Some Coaches are into specific areas; they are specialist in Coaching people in those particular areas such as; Business, Sports, Gaming, Public Speaking, Health & Wellness, Relationships etc. These set of Coaches have narrowed down their Coaching niche to just one or few areas.
Guiding Clients to Attain Clarity
Having a Coach is quite necessary, in my opinion, because a Coach can quickly help you find and attain clarity in any area of life. A Coach can help you reach and achieve progress faster. It is so crucial that even most successful Coaches have at least one Coach. The points below highlight three best practices for coaches.
- Effective Listening
As a Coach, your job is generally to guide your clients so they can come up with steps and take actions that are necessary for achieving their goals.
One essential ability you need as a Coach is ‘effective listening’. In comparison, they talk to try to listen to them actively to decode their needs quickly. As a Coach, effective listening helps you to become aware and clear about the needs of your clients without them putting it into their words.
- Empathy
Listening to others with “empathy” can help draw them out. Listening to others with empathy is putting them in your shoes if they choose to open up to you as a Coach. You need to identify strongly with what they are going through while trying to help them find solutions.
- Building Trust with Clients
Coaching people entails so much understanding that everyone is human and has their faults, including you. No one is perfect, with that attitude you can make your clients feel safer confiding in you.
It would be best if you built that environment of trust with your client by making them see you as their friend whom they can share their concerns freely without being judged or criticized.
You don’t also force people to open up to you while coaching them, let them do it at their own time or pace. Make them feel safe around you, do not pry or ask in-depth questions which they aren’t comfortable revealing yet. Guard their personal information which they shared with you by protecting their identity.
It’s quite okay to share your personal coaching experiences using the stories of your clients with others, but do not give out the intimate details of your clients without their permission. Do not share their stories in such a way that will make them feel bad sharing their personal information with you.
You mustn’t share every detail relating to your interactions with clients or criticize them publicly through your writings to impress people. That’s the reason why some of these clients no longer want your coaching because; they don’t trust you!
It would be best if you were discreet in your engagements with clients as a Coach. Leave it to the public reviews and star ratings. It would help if you were not judgmental about their choices or decisions. Help them save face even when they didn’t do rightly in the way they acted. Try to give them credit even where they don’t deserve it.
Finally, you need to be a master encourager of people as a life coach, create that hope in them that they could be better with your coaching. That no matter the issues they have, with you coaching them, they will find clarity. While making excuses for their lapses, encourage them to work on their failures for success.
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