Reflections
Let’s talk about your coachees today.
As your coaching relationships progress, insights, declarations, and results will naturally accrue.
Will these things be forgotten, merely flash-in-the-pan with no lasting impact? Or with they stick around, to be remembered, truly integrated, used for a reference of then-and-now progress and built upon?
Few. Coaches. Wrestle. With. This.
And yet…
Here’s a street-level report on things, from us coachees.
The default state in coaching is that whatever was created last session is pushed out of awareness by whatever is created in the current one. Absent structure to record and re-presence past creations, this is a natural consequence of human awareness.
Enter Reflections.
Reflections are your way to have CoachAccountable automatically insert insights, answers to questions, and results that were recorded earlier into subsequent work and content, allowing both you and your clients to stay aware of (and build upon) whatever was created earlier. This steers coaching relationships towards continuity and progress that builds (as contrasted with always starting from a blank slate, dealing only with the moment thus losing sight of the bigger picture).
With Reflections, scenarios like these are possible with CoachAccountable automatically doing the heavy lifting of finding and filling in the blanks for you:
“Over the past 4 weeks, your weekly sales have been $____, $____, $____ and $____. How are you feeling about your progress during that time?”
“Coming into this Session, [clientFirstName] said they most wanted help this week with _____________.”
“Coming into this session you said you were most excited to get guidance around ______________. What is your outlook around that now, going forward?”
“Yesterday, you meditated for ___ minutes.
What’s your number for today?”or, if they entered a zero or didn’t report:“It looks like you didn’t meditate yesterday. No worries, you can get right back into the habit today!”
“On Day 1 you said the breakthrough you were most interested in getting was this:
_____________________________________
Three weeks in, how is that going now?”
I don’t like to traffic in hype cliches. Nevertheless I believe it fair to say that the ability to automatically re-presence the words and results of your clients in subsequent interactions is a game changer. You get to create a profound sense of continuity in your relationship, really be in your client’s world by recreating what they’ve said and accomplished, and keep meaningful creations alive and present.
And the client experience?
When presented with our own words and ideas, we pay attention. Yes, it’s not hard to fill out the usual blank pre-session form as preparation for our upcoming coaching call (“How’s it been going since last time?”, but it’s a vastly different experience to interact with an inquiry that contains our own words (“After last session, you said you were taking on ___________. How’s that gone since then?”)
For client engagement.
For continuity.
For awareness.
For the experience of being known and heard.
For progress that builds upon itself.
This. Is. Cool.
And I can’t wait to see what you create with Reflections of your own.
To get you started, I’ve created a Resource Package that showcases off several ways to use Reflections.
The pair pre- and post-Appointment Worksheet Templates, for example show off a powerful back-and-forth rhythm of re-presencing what client said over a sequence of sessions.
Try it, and others, out in the Course Builder Page Preview mode to see the effect in action.
If you want a really easy way to start using Reflections in your practice today, start using those Reflection-powered pre- and post-Appointment Worksheets with your routine coaching calls. It’s as easy as 1-2-3:
- Install them from the Reflections Resource Package
- Make whatever edits you like to them (to tailor them to your voice and style)
- Edit your Appointment Type(s) to include those new pre- and post-Appointment Worksheets.
And that’s Reflections!
If you take 5 minutes to install that Reflections Resource Package, it is apt to get your creative juices flowing in a Very. Good. Way. To learn more of the nuts and bolts, see the Knowledge Base article on Reflections.