What Are You Asking Yourself as You Coach?

We coaches have a quiver full of questions we ask our clients. Afterall, powerful questions are a coach’s stock-in-trade.?And I’ve found that even more important than the questions we ask our clients, are the questions we ask ourselves.

Informed by my experience with Narrative Coaching, when I’m coaching, I hold specific questions in my mind that help me discern where the coaching wants to go. These questions honor the organic nature of the human development process and the notion that we are all always, consciously or unconsciously, shedding, searching for, shifting and sustaining aspects of ourselves.

As I engage with my clients, I’m asking myself the following questions:

• What does this person want/need from me right now?
• What is the purpose of the story the client is telling?
• What is the crux of this situation?

By asking myself these questions, I can listen for what’s underneath my client’s words and discern how I can foster their deepest desires for themselves.

Here’s a little bit about the nature of each question.

What does this person want/need from me right now?

At first blush, you might be thinking “Well, doesn’t the client just tell you that?!”. In my experience, no.?Oftentimes what we humans are most wanting is something too vulnerable to ask for.

At the beginning of this year, I started a coaching reflection log that I complete at the end of each session, encouraging me to think more deeply about what was going on during the session that I may have missed real time. My coaching reflection log includes each of the four questions above as well as others.

As I’ve answered these questions, I’ve realized that most often, my client is simply wanting to be seen, felt, heard and witnessed. They are wanting another human to experience with them a bit of what they are experiencing in their lives. They want to feel their lives. And having another empathetic human mirroring their experience allows them to process it and experience it more fully.?

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What’s the purpose of the story the client is telling?

Every story has a purpose, whether we are aware of it or not. The story is doing the work of forwarding our desired identity or development in some way. And the purpose of the story may or may not relate to the content of the story.

Here’s an example.

Every month or so, I share a meal with a friend. During our time together, we share what’s going on in our lives. We tell stories.??

The stories my friend tells are all versions of the same story. The story (told in a direct and humble way) is about how they helped, supported, rescued, tough-loved someone important to them and made their lives better. They are the hero of every story they tell. And while Joseph Campbell would tell you that we are all the heroes of our own stories, there’s more going on here.

I believe the purpose of those stories is to be seen as helpful, powerful, and strong, by both them and me. It tells me what they are wanting from me: affirmation of their goodness. They want that affirmation as a form of connection and nourishment. And I’m happy to do it, because I love them and affirmation is part of what love looks like.

What’s the crux of the situation?

What is the development, the change, the shift needed from within the client for them to overcome what they are experiencing?

I have a long time coaching client who has been some form of miserable most of the time we’ve worked together.?Much of the source of his misery relates to (almost) nothing being good enough for him (including him). He has a bar for excellence that requires near perfection. And it sucks the joy out of his life.

The crux of the issue, what this moment of his life is asking of him, is acceptance.? Acceptance of who and what is. Accepting his employees as they are - smart and capable - and not as smart or capable as he is. (He’s extremely smart and capable).?This client is leaning into accepting himself, his employees, his clients and their performance, as they are, as it is, to allow himself to experience more joy.

As you go into your next coaching session, consider asking yourself these three questions.?See how they help you both zoom out to get more perspective on what’s wanting to happen and zoom in to see into your client. Those powerful questions that you know so well will always prove useful.?And perhaps asking yourself these questions and others will make your coaching even more powerful.