How Do You Use Silence in a Coaching Session?
Novice coaches often feel a need to fill in all the space in a session with words. When you’re starting out, silence can feel scary or threatening, or maybe just wasteful. It can be tough to just quietly be present with your client, especially if you tend to be a talkative person. But when you have asked a question, you must keep quiet and give whatever time is necessary for your client to answer. Your ability to be silent, and to hold the space for whatever your client needs, is a gift, perhaps a gift that no one else in that client’s life gives. Silence can be exactly what your client needs– to think, to feel, to absorb, to process– whatever is going on in the session, before moving on.
Your Best Coaching Practices Include Silence at Other Times
When else do you use your best coaching practices? Well, probably in all your coach-client interactions, but here’s another one where silence can be particularly tough and absolutely critical to your success. That is in your complimentary or enrollment session. However you ask your potential client to enroll in coaching with you, ask…. and then be silent. Otherwise, you deprive them of the opportunity to make their own decision, and you run the risk of talking them out of enrolling before they have the opportunity to say yes.
Give this strategy a try and see for yourself that it works. If you liked this coaching tip, leave a comment or use the handy bookmark buttons below to share it with others on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc. Thanks!
Dorine Kramer
JTS Strategy and Accountability Coach
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