What coaching tips keep clients from dropping out of coaching after they reach a major goal? Why do so many clients start getting complacent somewhere during the coaching process, and what coaching tips can you implement to keep them motivated? I’ve been asked these questions again and again, but what coaching tips really work? Since I’ve had these conversations with my mentor and coach, I looked through my mentor skills file and found the following information.

Coaching Tips: The Glass Ceiling Parable – Draw Attention to the Glass Ceiling

These coaching tips are really mentor skills passed from one generation of coaches to the next. Most clients go through a stage usually about the time they get close to achieving their goals. Imagine your client is climbing a ladder, and is approaching a glass ceiling. They are making good progress, and see no further obstacles to their goals. The first and most important of these mentor skills is for you to draw attention to that glass ceiling, so your clients don’t hit their heads.

Coaching Tips: Enroll Your Clients in 6 Months of Coaching to Prevent Hitting the Glass Ceiling

One of the coaching tips that helps reduce the likelihood of this happening is to enroll clients in 6 months of coaching. Why? Most clients will either have reached their initial goals or be on their way toward reaching their goals after 3 or 4 months. What happens then? They think that they don’t need coaching anymore. They are on their way up the ladder. Unfortunately they can’t see the glass ceiling right over their head. This is where you need to apply your mentor skills. If they drop out of coaching, they hit that glass ceiling and either get stuck or crash to the ground. Then they beat themselves up, and say “See! It’s no use. Coaching couldn’t help me.” They give up on their dreams.

Coaching Tips: Advise Your Clients So they Don’t Hit the Glass Ceiling

Another of the important coaching tips is to warn your clients that this is going to happen before it happens. If they’re in coaching when they hit the glass ceiling, you can use your coaching and mentor skills to navigate around the obstacles and get them back on track. They go through the glass ceiling, which then becomes a floor. The floor then offers resistance to going back to the way they were, and they go on to really start living out their dreams. Using these coaching tips with your own coaching and mentor skills will help you and your clients look at coaching as a longer term relationship toward reaching their ultimate goals.

Colette Seymann

JTS Advisors Designated Accountability Coach