What clients really talk to coaches about
My clients and I have an agreement: They create the agenda for their coaching sessions.
This is one of several ways in which coaching is practice for taking responsibility for your life experience.
Some clients email me an agenda in advance. Some show up with a list of what they want to cover. Some forget.
All are okay—and an opportunity.
When someone forgets to bring an agenda, or admits to cobbling together a half-hearted one at the last minute, it’s an opportunity to look at why they allowed other things to take priority.
Not so we can judge and make them wrong but so we can slow down on what’s capturing their attention and energy.
Where is your life force being directed? And is that serving you?
If that exploration doesn’t take the full session, or if we handle everything on the agenda with time remaining, I may offer another topic.
Here are 10 coaching topics I’ve found lead to expansive sessions and actionable insights:
A challenge you’re facing in your relationships, work, or health
A conversation you’ve been putting off
A concern or fear that’s occupying space in your brain
A situation you wish were different
A hope or dream you’re scared to say out loud
The thing you most want to see happen in the next 6-12 months
The thing you don’t want to talk about
The thing you think people misunderstand about you
The thing you wish would go away
The thing you know is getting in your way
These are just jumping-off points. Where coaching sessions start is rarely where they end up.
I say that because I’ve noticed sometimes there’s resistance.
I DO need to have that conversation but I don’t want to waste my coaching session on it.
I KNOW I shouldn’t be doing this but we don’t have to spend time talking about it—I just need to be more disciplined.
I WANT to address it, just not today.
If there’s something you’re resisting bringing to coaching, it’s probably exactly what you should bring to coaching.
The real power of coaching is in helping you look at how you’re relating to the things occurring in your life. So it doesn’t really matter how “big” or “small” your topic is.
The seemingly least significant topics can lead to the richest coaching conversations.
I think this is because the things we tend to brush off or deem insignificant often have become habitual or gotten relegated to the “that’s just the way it is/I am” category of the brain.
When you’re in “that’s just the way it is/I am” mode, it’s a signal that you’re living inside a story. Helping you separate stories from reality is the bread and butter of coaching.
If you’re working with a coach and don’t have a pressing agenda item for your next session, I invite you to experiment with bringing one of the topics above.
If you don’t have a coach and want to have a conversation about one of these topics, get in touch.
