Don't be afraid to challenge your clients.

Are  you afraid to challenge your clients, or to go to places where they may be sensitive? It's definitely something worth looking at. There's a big difference between becoming someone's therapist and looking at critical issues in your coachee's life that are affecting his or her progress.

If you're afraid to go where it's scary for your client, or scary for you, you first need to find out what your deeper fear is. Are you afraid that you or your client won't be able to handle it, or that it will embarrass or otherwise cause discomfort for your client?

A surface fear, like fear of your client becoming uncomfortable or not being able to handle things is probably fueled by a deeper, more personal fear that you have. For instance, your deeper fear might be that your client would judge you for being too insensitive, or that they'll run from the scary issues and reject you as a coach. If you're afraid of your client judging  you or rejecting you as a coach, you really need to question what client judgment or rejection really means to you and consider changing it. 

What if you don't have faith in your client's ability to deal with their problems? Think about it. If you're afraid your client can't handle it on some level, then you probably don't see the full potential of this client. Ask yourself this: is it more useful to your client for you to see them as weak, unable to cope, easily hurt or otherwise without power, or is it more useful to see your client's potential- to see them as capable, strong, and able to withstand many things, even if they seem sensitive now? If you have faith in your client's abilities, they'll probably see it for themselves much more quickly than they could on their own, but if you see them as weak, you could inadvertently be keeping them right where they are– actually disempowering them, by protecting them from the scarier issues.

And on the flip side, you may be unsure about being able to handle those issues as a coach. If you don't know how to handle anything deeper than setting goals, strategies, and accountability, or if you are afraid of strong emotions and tears, there's nothing wrong with that, but you have a choice to make: to either do only that kind of coaching, which is fine, or to get some additional training that allows you to go to the deeper needs of a client without scaring yourself about it. I'm not talking about doing therapy with a client. If the issues are so life-and-well-being-threatening that they need therapy, they probably don't need coaching at this point anyway.

What I'm talking about is the deep needs and doubts that almost everyone has about what they want versus what they perceive about their abilities,  deserving, and how others perceive them. Yes, even the psychologically healthy people have these challenges. This is the stuff that both drives your clients and stops them cold. When a client talks about what's really important to them- what drives them, what they're afraid of, what they want and need, strong emotions and tears often show up. You can address many of  these issues, if you're trained and comfortable with a client who's experiencing strong feelings. I realize that not many  coach training programs go far enough in this area. I wish they did, but it's almost as if a large segment of the coaching industry is afraid of strong emotions. Yet this is why people really come to coaching- to get what's important to them! It's not enough to just have goals and strategies for people to create lasting change. They have to face whatever they're scared of, realize what's at stake, and learn how to look at things differently.

Don't be afraid to go there. If you want to learn some great coaching skills on helping people look at things differently and how to be comfortable with strong emotions, I recommend any of the adult programs at the Option Institute. It's not a coach training program at all, yet many coaches and helping professionals use their philosophy and methods to help many people. The training I experienced there FAR surpasses any coach training I've ever taken.

Sandra Sinclair