People long to be heard by others, yet listening in a way that ensures that the speaker feels understood is hard to do and rarely encountered. Why is that? The riposte, ‘you are not listening to me!’ often comes when an individual has expressed negative feelings about themselves and the person they have been speaking to has rebutted this in some way. Accepted as they see themselves In our desire to support others we frequently want them to feel good about themselves. When

Have you ever been in the situation where someone said something that made you so angry that you reacted defensively? I have. It is usually when I feel that either I am or someone close to me is being criticised unfairly…in my opinion. My reaction is to defend, often by pointing out faults I see in the person who is stating their opinion. Not the best way to behave on my part. It is important that coaches do not allow this occasion to arise in coaching. In a coaching rel

As coaches we need to build a strong working alliance with our clients so that they trust us and feel safe to be vulnerable and explore aspects of themselves that they may have been unwilling or afraid to examine or that they were unaware of. When we show genuine empathy, unconditional positive regard and non-possessive warmth[1], we provide that safe container for them. One way to do this is to listen to our client’s story. Listening to stories develops our ability to rela

In coaching situations it’s easy to experience some performance anxiety; we want to do a great job and help our clients to unlock solutions to whatever personal situation they have come to us to resolve. I have found myself wanting to be the perfect coach, which for me means being at the non-directive end of the spectrum and wanting to ensure that my coachees achieve some new insight during our sessions that helps them move forward. On occasion that has transferred to the c

I was introduced to Life Coach Report by Rob Haley, it's creator and curator. Rob is passionate about life coaching and wanted to contribute to the field. He founded Life Coach Report as a resource for coaches to learn more about the field they operate in from fellow professional coaches. It is a fabulous resource of current topics that are categorised as News (specific to coaching), Professional Coaching (coaching skills, learning), Personal and Professional Growth, Leade

When I began coaching in 2005 I assimilated information about different approaches to coaching from a variety of sources, for example, John Whitworth’s GROW model, Gerard Egan’s, “The Skilled Helper”, Henry Kimsey-House et al on Co-Active coaching to forge a practice that seemed to help clients solve the problems that they brought to our coaching sessions. Over time I incorporated my expertise in leadership development methodologies to help coachees gain new insights about t