I’m a certified life coach, and several of these are questions found in life coaching.
E.g.:
Is there something you could do about that problem in the next five minutes?
Feeling stuck sucks. Have you spent a five minutetimer generating options?
What’s the twenty minute / minimum viable product version of this overwhelming-feeling thing?
These are all part of a broader technique of breaking down a problem. (I can probably find a name for it in my book.) E.g.: Someone comes in saying they’re really bad at X, and you ask them to actually rate their skills and then what they could do to become 5% better.
You want to do that but don’t think you will? Do you want to make a concrete plan now?
Do you want to just set an alarm on your phone now as a reminder? (from Damon Sasi)
Do you sort of already know what you’re going to do / have your mind made up about this?
These are all part of the “commitment” phase of a coaching session, which basically looks like walking someone through SMART goals.
Do you know anyone else who might have struggled with or succeeded at that? Have you talked to them about it? (from Damon Sasi)
Who do you know who you could ask for help from?
I can’t say these are instances of a named technique, but they are things you’d commonly find a coach asking. Helping someone look inside themselves for resources they already have is a pretty significant component of coaching.
There’s a major technique in coaching not represented here called championing. Champion is giving someone positive encouragement by reinforcing some underlying quality. E.g.: “You’ve shown a lot of determination to get this far, and I know you’ll be able to use it to succeed at X.”
Several of these questions do differ from life coaching in a big way: they suggest a course of action. We call this “advice-giving” as telling someone what to do serves the advice-giver’s agenda more than the receiver’s, or at least serves what the advice-giver thinks the receiver’s agenda should be. The best piece of (irony forthcoming) advice I’ve received about coaching is to “coach the person, not the problem.” Much more effective than to help someone with the task at hand is to help them cultivate the underlying skill. Instead of suggesting courses of action, you instead focus on their ability to come up with and evaluate options.
I’m a certified life coach, and several of these are questions found in life coaching.
E.g.:
These are all part of a broader technique of breaking down a problem. (I can probably find a name for it in my book.) E.g.: Someone comes in saying they’re really bad at X, and you ask them to actually rate their skills and then what they could do to become 5% better.
These are all part of the “commitment” phase of a coaching session, which basically looks like walking someone through SMART goals.
I can’t say these are instances of a named technique, but they are things you’d commonly find a coach asking. Helping someone look inside themselves for resources they already have is a pretty significant component of coaching.
There’s a major technique in coaching not represented here called championing. Champion is giving someone positive encouragement by reinforcing some underlying quality. E.g.: “You’ve shown a lot of determination to get this far, and I know you’ll be able to use it to succeed at X.”
Several of these questions do differ from life coaching in a big way: they suggest a course of action. We call this “advice-giving” as telling someone what to do serves the advice-giver’s agenda more than the receiver’s, or at least serves what the advice-giver thinks the receiver’s agenda should be. The best piece of (irony forthcoming) advice I’ve received about coaching is to “coach the person, not the problem.” Much more effective than to help someone with the task at hand is to help them cultivate the underlying skill. Instead of suggesting courses of action, you instead focus on their ability to come up with and evaluate options.
Recommended reading: Co-active Coaching, https://www.amazon.com/Co-Active-Coaching-Changing-Business-Transforming/dp/1857885678