What should a coaching session include?

How to structure your life coaching session Establish a relationship. Reframe your customer's challenges to find solutions together. Guide your customer through relevant strategies. Make an action plan.

Identify the specific problem for the time allotted to the session and set the purpose of the session. When starting a coaching conversation, the coach watches from the bench and arouses his curiosity and amazement as he observes the client. Many trainers find it a bit difficult to “establish a training agreement”, as they often seem to have to choose between being in the training flow or sticking to steps or indicators to establish a tangible result for the training session. If the client's goals are not concrete or seem vague despite your efforts to gain clarity, there is a temptation to abandon the establishment of the coaching agreement altogether.

Coaching is essentially a mix of coaching (helping people achieve a goal) and consulting (giving people a strategy to achieve a goal). How to conduct a coaching session. That's why you give your customers tangible things to work on (even if the result is intangible, such as stress training or trust). First, you'll have the opportunity to prioritize which specific concern you should address first, in case your client has mentioned several concerns that cannot be addressed in a training session.

And contrary to what many believe, a coach *not* is someone who talks to his clients on a call once in a blue moon, asks them some questions about how they feel, and that's all. The coaching process is based on an interactive dialogue between the coach and the client; one that discovers a vision, a new idea or action from the client. It is recommended that you spend some time at the end of each session to get the client's opinion on the progress of the coaching process. Clients who are highly motivated will find it easier to commit to whatever course of action is agreed upon, while those with less motivation will need more work on your part as a coach to hold them accountable.

There's something you need to establish before you have your first training sessions: a training contract. The flow of training is not a straight line, it is rather a spiral in which there is an ebb and flow and a loop back and forth between current and new ideas, thoughts and beliefs, as well as between possible obstacles or necessary resources. The job of a coach is to move the client from where they are now to where they want to be, and to do so in a way that allows them to take charge and direct the process. Sometimes, your coaching task may require you to help your client reframe a given situation so that a change in perspective can cause a change in the client's emotional reaction to the situation.

For example, more or less time can be devoted to certain steps or stages, or they can be shortened or even omitted because each coaching relationship is unique and is likely to follow its own path depending on the problems, issues or challenges that arise in each session. In this step, the coach shares observations for the client to consider about where the gap exists between the current situation and the one they want. I recommend making one or two individual coaching calls per client each month, depending on your offer. The only tools you need are a Zoom account to conduct your sessions and Google Drive to share material with your customers.

Some trainers refer to the process as “scaffolding”: the actual “building” or the results will be built collaboratively as slowly or quickly as both of you experience as needed. As a coach, you can help your clients lose weight (health coach), find a better job (professional trainer), or improve their finances (financial advisor). .