In life coaching, you as a motivational coach never want to ask your client “The Impossible Question”.  Clients need a motivational coach to keep pursuing the life of their dreams.  In life coaching, fear of failure is one of the most common challenges your clients face.  If your life coaching client has real problem with fear of failure, don’t ask them “The Impossible Question”.   What is the question and how do you help your motivational coach client handle fear of failure?

Life Coaching:  Do Not Let Your Motivational Coach Clients Think They Can Avoid Failure

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According to John Maxwell, “The Impossible Question” is one of the most commonly asked questions by any motivational coach or speaker.  It is, “If the possibility of failure were erased, what would you attempt to achieve?”  It may seem to be a good question to ask in your life coaching business.  It may seem to empower them to look ahead to life’s possibilities.  However, it is really a bad question.

Life Coaching:  As a Motivational Coach, Do Not Imply That Success is Possible Without Failure

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So why is it a bad question?  In life coaching and as a motivational coach, you must give your client the right mindset to be successful.  Again, John Maxwell believes “The Impossible Question” takes your client’s thinking down the wrong track.  I agree with him.  There is no success without failure.  To suggest to your life coaching clients that it’s possible, is the wrong impression.  Ask your motivational coach clients this question instead: “If your perception of, and response to failure were changed, what would you attempt to achieve?”  Your life coaching client can change their life, if you help them look at failure differently.

Kris Thompson

JTS Advisors Strategy Coach

Technorati Tags: Life Coaching, Motivational Coach

If you’re a motivational coach, how do you keep your life coaching client moving toward their goals? It’s an age-old problem. When your client gets off their call with you as their motivational coach they are so pumped up! Then a few hours or days pass, and they go back to what they have always been doing. Why don’t life coaching clients stay motivated and keep taking action toward their goals? Because they don’t have a compelling enough reason to achieve them. We will now consider two things you must do to keep your life coaching clients deeply motivated to accomplish their goals.

As A Motivational Coach You Must Connect Your Client To The “Hell” They Will Experience If They Don’t Accomplish Their Goal

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After you have your life coaching client write their goal down, have them write a paragraph about it. The paragraph needs to start with a description of the “hell,” or consequences, they will experience if they don’t accomplish their goal. What will it cost them in life and in their life coaching? At the end of the paragraph, have them write down the “heaven” that will result if they do accomplish the goal. If your client’s reason for achieving the goal is greater than the obstacles they will face, then they will be much more likely to achieve the goal with you as their motivational coach. If not, you will have your work cut out for you.

Your Life Coaching Client is Motivated By Two Things: Gaining Pleasure And Avoiding Pain

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Here is an example: Imagine you are one of your motivational coach clients. You have been smoking a pack of cigarettes every day for 20 years. You have had a goal to quit smoking for the last five years because you know smoking is bad for you. You’ve tried hypnosis, gum and quit smoking seminars, but nothing seems to work. You go to the doctor. The doctor confirms your worst fears. You have lung cancer. If you quit smoking now you will have 10 years to live. If you keep smoking you will die in one year. Would you be able to quit smoking? I think most people would, with or without a motivational coach. Even though for the last five years the goal was unsuccessfully met, you would instantly have a strong enough reason to accomplish the goal. In a way, you would become your own motivational coach.

By writing down their life coaching goals, and the “heaven” and “hell” associated with them, your clients are creating a tool that they can use whenever they need a dose of their motivational coach. Your life coaching clients can read the paragraph they wrote whenever they don’t feel like taking action to give them a surge of motivation right when they need it most.

Kris Thompson
JTS Advisors Strategy Coach

Technorati Tags: Life Coaching, Motivational Coach

When you are life coaching your clients, sometimes you also need to be a motivational coach. Your client probably wants coaching because they are not happy with their life. Why is a motivational coach so important for every client in your life coaching business? Because clients will not take new actions if they lose hope.

Life Coaching Clients Need a Motivational Coach To Break Old Habits

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Life coaching clients also need a motivational coach because their old habits may be hard to break. When people make mistakes over and over again, they view the mistakes as part of who they are. They might say things like, “I never follow through on my commitments.” Being someone who does not follow through is what the client has taken on as part of their identity. They believe that history repeats itself.

Part of your life coaching for these clients will be to practice activities that a motivational coach would also do. In order for them to become motivated to change, they need you to believe they will change. That will give them hope.

Hold Your Life Coaching Clients To A New Standard And Be Positive

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Now your life coaching clients are taking action. The next step you need to take as their motivational coach is to hold them to a new standard. As you would in life coaching, you need to celebrate all the actions they take to achieve their goals. At the same time, you provide the motivational coach slant by putting faith in their future actions.

What do you say to your life coaching clients to keep them motivated? You say things like, “It’s okay to have a bad day. Tomorrow I know you will do a better job.” You can also celebrate a win and hold them to a new standard by saying “Great job on that! Now the next level for you is this.” You need to be positive with your clients. Also expect more of them as they make progress. Being positive and encouraging will make them feel good about themselves. By taking these simple actions as their pseudo motivational coach, they will want to continue taking the right actions to keep feeling good and achieve success.

Kris Thompson
JTS Advisors Strategy Coach

Technorati Tags: Life Coaching, Motivational Coach

Any motivational coach will tell you that the most commonly perceived problem their clients face is being ‘stuck’. And in life coaching circles, coaches often ask what’s the best way to get people ‘unstuck’. Few people are naturally positive, so most of us depend on life coaching routines to get us into a great state of mind. As a motivational coach you can teach these skills to your clients. Beyond that, there are 3 things you need to know to help your clients get back on track:

A Good Motivational Coach Helps Their Clients by Increasing Awareness of Where they Are

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1. Where they are. This one may seem obvious, they’re ‘stuck’. But a good motivational coach will help their clients see that when someone says they’re not getting results they tend to translate the situation into a universal. This simply means they see the situation in terms of all or none. The key to effective life coaching is to realize that it’s a natural pattern to use universals to amplify our situation.

As a Motivational Coach You Must Discover Where Your Client Wants to Be

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2. Where they want to be. An effective motivational coach is well-versed in getting people to connect with their vision. But beyond that another life coaching technique is to help people see what they really want in terms of meeting their basic needs; such as significance, certainty, love/connection and variety.

Use Your Life Coaching Skills to Close the Gap

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3. What’s the gap between where they want to be and where they are? Don’t settle for being a motivational coach who simply gets people into action. Although that’s valuable, using your life coaching skills to find out what’s really holding them back will be far more effective. This is usually defined in terms of which basic needs will be less fulfilled by moving forward. For example, many people don’t like to make prospecting calls because they fear rejection. They might feel a loss of significance or certainty. Most fear is really about a perceived loss of meeting basic needs.

The challenge of getting your clients ‘unstuck’ is really a great opportunity for the motivational coach who is willing to use their life coaching skills to get to the deeper issues. Then the transformation will be longer lasting and you will make a greater impact on your client’s lives.

Colette Seymann

JTS Advisors Designated Accountability Coach

Technorati Tags: Life Coaching, Motivational Coach