Why is Your Coaching Impact a Hit or a Miss? -

You’re a trained coach, so why is your coaching impact a hit or a miss?

Coaching can be an extremely rewarding experience. Having the ability and expertise to help somebody reach their goal or get over a hurdle is not something that just anyone can do. It requires patience, knowledge, and years of training.

However, even the coaches with years of training may find themselves in a series of hits or misses. Sometimes, you may feel like you did amazing with your client and then have a session the next day that makes you feel like an imposter.

Sounds familiar?

Don’t worry, we’re here to get to know the reasons – and solutions – behind it.

The Reasons Behind The Misses

Firstly, step back and reflect on what you’re experiencing. You may be facing a case of self-doubt, and are not objectively acknowledging how you did. Are there hidden expectations you had of yourself you didn’t fulfil? Is there a mismatch between where the client landed vs what you wanted to see from the client?

Here, I am suggesting two instances which you can consider to redefine or refine your measures of success Read on below.

You judge your success by how you feel you did.

• While feeling accomplished is a great feeling, it’s not a great measure of success. The same way that feeling like you failed doesn’t necessarily mean that you did. Coaching is a deeply personal profession but it’s best if you learn to detach your personal feelings from the outcome.
• Remember that it’s all about your client. Projecting yourself and your feelings on their journey does the coaching partnership a great disservice. Every client is different. They have their own stories, needs, and personalities that greatly affect their journey to whatever goal they set. Every client should be treated with objectivity from start to end of each session. Seperate yourself from the client’s journey and process.

You might not have set clear coaching objectives.

• Clear objectives help you and the client scope out the session’s purpose.
• What some coaches tend to do is to go over sessions like a tightly created module. Human progress isn’t linear and coaching shouldn’t be standardized – again, every client is different. To make it your goal to “cover” everything, every session, is often not helpful to your client especially if they don’t get what they need from it. Coaching shouldn’t be too focused on getting to the “solution”, not when it sacrifices deeper discoveries and often, more important, discoveries for your client.
• Remember, clients often don’t know what they want exactly, thus not really knowing how to measure the success of each of their coaching sessions. As their coach, it’s your job to provide guidance without leading them to the results that YOU secretly wish for.. It is their journey and you are their guide. Make sure that each session is defined by what’s important to them and allow a safe space for bouncing off their ideas that will slowly but surely lead to a clearer picture.

Now that you know what to look out for when determining the success or failure of a session, you might be wondering how to solve them.

We have a three-step solution you can follow and revisit when you need to.

The Three-Step Solution

Invest time in thoroughly defining with the client what would be meaningful for them to experience from the session, and invest time in yourself as a coach following these three steps.

1. Focus on your client’s experience.Lift your eyes from your checklist and notes. focus beyond your client’s responses and pay closer attention to their experience. Your job as their coach is to present what could make a difference for them and to provide clarity to their jumbled thoughts.Best way to do this is to invest time in exploring what would be meaningful for them from this session – and why? Find out, where they specifically require your support, and what is the best form this support could take? This co-creation process helps you separate your personal wishes from what the client objectively needs from you, and the process to get them there. As a coach, learn to meet them where they are – not where you want them to be.

   At the end, ask how they feel after the session. Do they feel more confident about the next course of action? Do they feel lighter now that they have more clarity in their thoughts? What is the difference between when they first came in, and where they are now? What allowed that change?

2. Give them time and space.It’s tempting to get immediate feedback after a session, but some things might take a while to sink in. Again, clients often don’t know what they want or need. As their coach, as much as it is your job to guide them, it is also your job to trust them and give them a safe space to unpack their thoughts in order to slowly reveal what they need.The best practice here is to co-create check-in points that would make sense for the client. Some clients prefer shorter feedback cycles, whilst some respect the process and prefer to flow with what comes up. Be clear what to expect, so that you don’t take ‘no feedback as bad feedback’; likewise if as a Coach, you need conclusive feedback, let them know and design that process with them.
3. Reflect upon yourself.Now, as for you, the coach, you have your own innework to do. Similar to observing your client’s experience post-session, take time to absorb your own as well. Separate what was satisfying and effective for your client from what YOU ideally wish or intend to achieve as a coach. Notice if there’s a gap between the two and give yourself space to be kind to yourself before determining your next steps.Ask yourself the following questions through a objective point of view:

   – Were you fully satisfied with how you conducted the session?
   – How do you feel about your performance?
   – Did you feel unfulfilled or lacking in any way? Where is that coming from?

It’s best practice to engage a coach supervisor or mentor with whom you can discuss these with and process beyond any self-limiting structures, to support you in your coach development.

Conclusion