© The Wellness Inventory Certification Training, 2009, www.wellpeople.com
COACHING – THE SHORT, SHORT FORM
To help you to think more clearly about this coaching process, here are the essentials. If you
just remember this, you will conduct effective coaching sessions. The rest can be added as you
go along.
1) BEING
If it is the first session using the Wellness Inventory, as you are discussing their experience and
their scores, look for opportunities to inquire into what they want or what is most important to
them. Don’t hurry into the “Doing.” Explore with them to see if there might be a deeper want
under what is initially identified in response to the first question. Usually people will give you
what they don’t want or strategies for how to get what they want. Gently bring them back to what
it is they want that is under all that. Look at my example of how to do this in the document
“Coaching toward the Holographic Change Process.”
2) DOING
Once the client has had a shift in clarifying what they really want, the doing comes much easier.
It’s here you look at resources, brainstorm, or do a spin on the wheel to find solutions. Use your
intuition, reflections, questions, and suggestions to facilitate this process. You are continuing to
keep in mind that your purpose is to serve the client.
3) HAVING
At a good stopping spot usually about 5-10 minutes before the end of the session you ask the
client what they are taking away from the conversation. You let them summarize the experience.
It might be very different from what you thought. It doesn’t matter. It’s their session. It’s fine to
ask them about something that happened in the session if they don’t bring it up. Then you
inquire into what action steps they’d like to assign themselves. You help them design the
actions steps to be as SMART as possible and then ask them to check in their body to see if
their felt sense is in agreement.
Before and during the session you are continuing to remind yourself that the client is already
creative, resourceful, and whole and you are their partner to support their process.
I hope this simplification will help to approach your sessions with assurance and ease.