Life coaching is about helping clients achieve their goals and dreams by asking questions and helping create a road map to these goals, but can it also be about personality coaching? As a life coach, are you also a personality coach? Do you delve into personality traits and attempt to analyze, dissect, and correct them?

What is Personality Coaching?

Coaching someone’s personality is mostly about giving feedback and then offering suggestions to help a client, for lack of better words, develop a better personality! However, giving feedback is wrought with potential disasters and should be given as gently as possible. Most people, when they hear the word, “feedback”, think of negative feedback, or possibly, constructive criticism. Whether it is negative feedback or constructive criticism, it usually involves a defect in one’s behavior or personality.

How to Give Feedback

One of the best ways to give feedback fits right into a coach’s milieu – an environment of inquiry. Coaches give feedback by asking questions. Presenting the right questions to your clients will help them find their own answers and begin to improve their own personality. Inquiry is one of the best tools in a coach’s toolbox and should certainly be used when dealing with a client’s personality. Which is better: “you know, your personality is a bit stubborn and pessimistic. Or, “To achieve goals, would someone who is open-minded and optimistic have a better chance than someone who is close-minded and pessimistic?” A client will most likely respond to questions better than to negative feedback.

When giving feedback, it is also important to hold a client’s value and consider it when giving feedback. You can promote positive personality traits while offering suggestions on how to improve other aspects of a client’s personality. Youth sports coaches are often told to give five positive comments for every one negative comment – this helpful hint is useful in the life coaching realm. Sure, you have to point out some behavioral issues and give some negative feedback, but never forget the value of a client and that positive comments motivate better than negative comments. Remember, clients do not want their valued lessened – they come to you to improve. Feedback has to be given without devaluing a client.

Personality coaching is not easy. Clients often get defensive when their specific personality traits are perceived to be under attack. Giving feedback requires you to walk on eggshells, use inquiry, and always promote your client’s value when attempting to ameliorate any personality characteristics.

Life coaching covers plenty of territory and changing behaviors can be included in this territory. Changing behaviors can sometimes mean changing aspects of an individual’s personality in order to pursue goals and dreams. Good life coaches will change a client’s personality without the client knowing that their personality is being manipulated and altered.

Is Life Coaching the Same as Personality Coaching?

Personality is the public person and is defined by behavior. Life coaching helps to accelerate growth, personal fulfillment, and success through questioning and altering behavior. At its most basic, life coaching is actually personality coaching and deals with behavior. Yes, the two are one and the same!

By the way… you’re invited to claim your FREE step-by-step “30-Days to Become a Coach” video toolkit. Just go HERE now to get your 30-day coaching blueprint videos.

Fred Philips
Business Coach
Writing Team, Coaches Training Blog Community