There are a lot of coaching tips to get people to change behaviors that are effective, but clients need tips they can use at home to create lasting change outside your sessions.  Everyone who wants to make changes in their life struggles, falls off the wagon, or otherwise has moments where they feel like they have failed.  These powerful coaching tips will put some control back into your clients’ lives.

Negative Reinforcement Is Detrimental to Success

Let’s face it.  Most of use beat ourselves up a bit when we mess up.  Let’s say your client makes a commitment to better health and goes to a party where she eats and drinks food she wanted to avoid.  Chances are that until your next session with her, she will berate herself in some way and continue to eat poorly.   Depending on how frequent your coaching sessions are, a lot of ground can be lost during this time, even if it’s only a week.

Coaching Tips Your Clients Can Use Instead of Beating Themselves Up

One of the most powerful coaching tips is to prepare your clients for these moments before they happen.  Let them know that it’s ok.  That people mess up.  And when they do, they have a choice.  They can beat themselves up about it, or they can decide to be powerful.  Teach them that they can choose to brush themselves off and immediately go back to the new habits.  As soon as they do, have them reward themselves.  They key is to find an immediate reward, such as patting themselves on the back ten times.

After doing this a few times, people will start to see a shift in their own behavior.  They will actually fall off the wagon less and less.  As they do they will be rewarded further by seeing progress toward their goals, which is really the reward they were looking for.

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Colette Seymann

JTS Advisors Bi-Designated Strategy and Accountability Coach