The Keys To An Effective Coaching Session

When I first became a coach, I used to get so anxious and so nervous that I would have to jump on coaching calls and know all the answers then impostor syndrome would kick in. Can you relate? I am here to change the narrative around what impactful coaching truly is.

Rapport

One of the foundational pillars in order to have an impactful coaching session is a Rapport. Rapport is this amazing feeling of liking a connection of the ability to have good communication and rapport doesn't come from telling answers. Report comes from active listening. Rapport comes from mirroring and matching what your client is doing. Rapport comes from being able to really hold space to tune into what it is that your client is saying. Rapport comes from watching your client's physiology and being able to leverage that to talk about where you notice your client being triggered.

A big misconception about rapport is that it's only supposed to be built in the very beginning of a coaching contract. But the truth is, rapport should be something that you're continuously doing.

Have you ever had something happen to you and you tell somebody and you feel like they blow you off? That does not feel good and you likely will not feel connected to that person.

Or maybe on the opposite, you've had something happen to you and you feel like that person just holds so much space for you and shows you so much love and grace? That's the power of Rapport.

When someone allows you to feel heard and held, you feel connected to them and you trust them and the impact goes so much deeper and the change happens so much faster. So when you're having coaching sessions, I want you to consider how you can prioritize building that Rapport.

IMPACT

The second thing you need to have an impactful coaching session is impact. The ability to develop someone in the direction of their dreams is so powerful, but if you're not doing that, then it's purposeless. A big mistake that I see when coaches are having sessions is they let people jump on and they just talk freely and excessively about whatever's coming up on their mind.

But the truth is you want to have somewhat of an outline or an idea of what you're going to focus on. Therefore, when I start coaching sessions, I always like to ask clients what happened since the last time and what is it that we need to focus on that will get you closer to moving that needle towards your goals?

This ensures that we are moving in the right direction because each session should incrementally be moving that needle. When you think of the big picture goal that a client is coming to you with, you have to understand this is not something that happens overnight. It's something that we must commit to a little bit at a time.

This is the power of the compound effect adds up to massive results. So as you enter each session, consider what small, seemingly small, incremental steps can I have today that will have the greatest impact on their future? When you prioritize that, you get to prioritize the impact that your client desires and deserves.

 Guidance

The third component of an impactful coaching session is guidance. Powerful coaching is not about knowing all the answers and giving advice. Powerful coaching consists of listening that active listening, asking powerful questions, and helping your clients dig in to finding the answers that they already have within themselves. Your job as an impactful coach is to be their guide, to be their cheerleader, and to be their biggest advocate, but to also at the same time hold them accountable.

Your goal as a coach is to teach them how to trust themselves, how to pull out those answers out that you know that they have, and how to take aligned action. What you want to avoid, most importantly, is to teach them to be overly reliant on you. Because the truth is, they already have everything that they need deep within themselves.

Personal Ownership

Owning our experiences and our results is empowering. In the NLP world there is a concept called cause vs effect. All of us play a cause for the good things that take place in our life. The great relationship, the wonderful job, the successful month in business, whatever it may be. But where real shifts take place is when we play at cause for the things that we don't want. But the truth is, when we play at cause with those tough experiences, it allows us to have profound shifts and massive growth. Because what we acknowledge is that we're no longer a victim, but that we are a victor and that we are in control of our results.

So cause versus effect is a powerful concept that you can dive in and talk to your clients about, because when they learn to play at cost, they get to become the victims in their life and they get to take control of their results.

Energy

The final component of an impactful coaching session is energy. Everything is energy. There was actually an experiment done on rice where they took two jars of white rice with one they spent time consciously sending negative vibes and saying mean things to a jar of rice. And with the other jar, they spent time encouraging and saying nice words and sending wonderful vibes.

Within a few weeks, the one jar with positive vibes had rice that was fluffy and full and purely white, and the other one was starting to mold and just get nasty and started to turn black. This rice experiment, while it seems silly, shows you the power of energy. The energy that was given to rice impacted the overall results. So imagine the energy that you carry into a session and give to a client that could also have a profound impact on the client's results. So as a coach, your job is to carry the right energy into your client sessions.

If you notice the energy being off, come back, ground yourself in reality and utilize the energy modalities such as tapping or cord cutting or whatever you see fit to make sure the energy is aligned. You can also use your physiology where you're checking in with the client's body posture, with the client's responses, with the clients non verbal’s to see where things begin to feel a little bit altered.

Then again you can use different grounding techniques or practices to shift the energetic state that's taking place in the coaching session. Also as a coach I love to make sure that I'm grounding myself both before and after each session and in the very beginning of the session asking the client where they're at and what would be supportive as we dive into the session. This has been a massive game changer for me to ensure that the energy stays amazing throughout sessions.

As you see coaching sessions don’t have to be overwhelming and can honestly be quit fun and expansive. Now you get to learn and leverage these strategies to see how your sessions shift and how your clients transform.

If you desire to learn how to elevate your coaching sessions plus learn some of the most profound and powerful tools that will allow you to increase your impact and your income. As a coach I have just the thing for you if you use the details and the link inside the show notes you are going to be able to access The ELEVATE Your Coaching Sessions bundle where you are going to learn a foolproof formula for having the coaching sessions that blow not only you away but your clients away as well. So definitely use that link and I look forward to seeing you there.

www.nicolyawilliams.com/client-sessions