As a personal development coach, you have a lot of ground to cover with your clients. Personal development coaching and personal growth coaching are umbrella terms. Because of that clients can come to you for help in taking action on anything from health challenges to relationships to planning for business development and growth. Whatever the specific focus of any given client, as a personal development coach your first and most important task is getting your client into a consistently empowered mindset. The right mindset is the key to your client’s success.

Safety or Growth?

Every human being has a need for certainty and safety. It’s one of the four basic survival needs that we all must fulfill at some level. For most of us, a mindset of worry and fear of the unknown fulfills our certainty need, at least in part. It’s natural. Our psychology is set up to keep us safe by sticking to the familiar and avoiding the risk of trying or even thinking something new. If we expect negative outcomes when we take action, we won’t be disappointed when that’s what we get. Unfortunately, fear often stops us from growing and causes intense frustration and discontent. When it gets uncomfortable enough, your clients find you–a personal development coach.

A Personal Development Coach Opens Possibilities

The most critical thing you can do for your client is to begin to shift his mindset away from fear and into possibility. Coach him to form new habits of mind that override or short circuit the fear. You can start this process by getting him to be honest about what his need for certainty is costing him. Then have him visualize the opportunities that will open up if he can put aside the fear. If he’s come to you for personal development coaching, he’s already committed to change. Your job is to guide him in the process and to coach him on taking responsibility for making it happen.

Life is always full of uncertainties. It’s how we approach them and manage our mindsets that determines the quality of our lives. As a personal development coach, you help your clients take responsibility for what happens and how they react. When they feel at cause instead of at effect, their decisions will come from power instead of fear.

Hope you took some great value out of this post today! I’d love to hear your feedback, so make sure you leave a comment with your thoughts or questions. And also, you can click on the Twitter button below to retweet this article… Thank you!

Dorine G. Kramer
JTS Advisors Strategy and Accountability Coach