Online course Nature based coaching - Lesson 4
Session 2
What is your desire?
In this lesson we will teach you all you need to know about the 2nd session of the coaching trajectory in which you will explore your clients desire. This desire is going to be the goal of your coaching trajectory.
We start with a written overview of all 10 steps you need to take and we will end this lesson with a video of the live movie recordings of this session. After studying all this material you can do your second live practise with your fellow student and/or your 2nd session with your try-out client.
The importance of setting a goal
A coaching trajectory without a clear goal, isn’t solid. When you don't have a goal, you don't know where you're heading with your client. You also don’t know when you’re done and whether you have achieved a result. By taking time to set a clear goal, you let the client become aware of what they really wants. What is your issue actually really about? And what is it exactly what you desire?
In addition, as a coach it gives you direction during the process. Along the way you can constantly refer to that goal and check: is this still regarding your goal? Without a goal you can never really coach in a targeted way, and you will start floating.
About setting goals
A goal always consists of a certain wish and a clarifying question.
- I would like to find work that really suits me. How do I find out what that is?
- I want to be more at peace regarding my relationship with my adolescent son. How do I do that?
- I want to start my own business. How do I make this happen?
Start by describing that wish. And as a coach, make sure that it’s a specific wish and not simply a means to an end.
- Suppose someone says: I want to get rid of my fears. Then the first question you ask is: What are you afraid of?
- I'm afraid to show myself. You then ask: what would it bring you if you were to show yourself more?
- Then I would be able to start my own business. If you then ask: how would it feel, if you were to have your own practice? And the client says:
- That would make me very happy, then you know that the actual wish is: I want to start my own business.
- All the preceding wishes were merely a means of achieving that ultimate wish. And the question remains whether these were actually the right means of achieving that ultimate wish. You don’t know that yet and this is exactly what the client will be investigating together with you as a coach.
Describe the wish as something active you want to achieve.
- So instead of: I want to get rid of my fear, it becomes: I want to start my own business with confidence.
The client should choose something that is important to them. Something that makes the future different than the present. Otherwise there is insufficient basis for a good coaching conversation.
Make sure that the wish is as clear and specific as possible.
- I want more peace, pleasure or satisfaction in my life is too general and also difficult to measure.
- See if you can focus on what area this is most relevant so that you can discover what it’s really about. Do you want more calm at work? More time for yourself within your family? More space for your own needs in general, or specifically in your relationship? Is it about keeping inner peace in certain situations?
- Where it remains too abstract, the client still has many escape options. That's not what you want. The more specific the wish, the more serious it gets. When things get real, it allows you to call out the client on their own truth.
Symbolic work form:
- an image in the environment
In this session we ask our client to find an image in the environment that represents their longing. Through this image we invite the client to look at their desire from a whole new perspective. We also invite the client to stand in this image in order to fully connect to their wish.
As stated before, working with visual elements, triggers the unconscious, making it easier to unveil that which is normally hidden within the deeper layers of our being.
In addition, the image offers a wonderful source for you as a coach to ask your questions and will stimulate your own curiosity, which is beneficial for the grounded, open and curious state of being that we aspire to have as nature based coaches.
Again: You never simply use a work form, just for the sake of it. It must always be used with a clear goal within the coaching process and is always linked to the coaching question. This means that wherever you are in the trajectory and whatever work form you are using at that moment, you, as a coach, always know exactly what it is that you want to clarify. You are always clear on the entire path that you are taking with your client (5 clear steps), and why the specific work form is important at that stage.
Starting your 2nd session
Step 1: Walking meditation
Preferably, start with a 10 minute walking meditation.
Step 2: Recall most important insights of the previous session
Refer to the first session in which you have looked at what is currently happening in your client's life, and what may require change. Let your client recall what the most important insights were, and which question is currently the most important.
Step 3: Clarifying the wish of your client.
Whilst walking, ask the following questions:
- What would you like to see differently in this situation?
- Can you convert your longing into a wish?
- Formulate the wish into 1 sentence. > I would like to start my own business…
- Which clarifying question can you add to that wish? > …And I would like to know what I need to achieve that.
Formulating the wish this clearly is quite tricky. It can take 15 to 30 min to fully determine what they really want. If the client can’t quite figure it out, try the following question:
Imagine if anything was possible. If not a single dilemma regarding money, self-confidence or enough skill would matter. That you could live your wildest dream. What would you then most dearly want?
To clarify the wish, the following questions can be helpful:
Suppose you have achieved this ...
- What will you gain out of it?
- What will be different?
- What will you be able to do better?
- What will there be more of?
- What will be bigger or smaller?
- What do you want to feel/have?
- What do you want to be able to do?
Add any additional questions yourself.
Finish this step by clearly verbalizing the wish again (the goal).
Make sure that your focus remains on clarifying the wish, and do not be tempted to start coaching on that wish yet!
Important note
If the wish has been verbalized and you know which (coach) question goes hand in hand with that wish, then you have a clear picture of the goal of this trajectory. This goal becomes the main thread of all the following sessions. Every intervention is linked to that one goal. It’s what you will work towards to. At the end of the whole process you must be able to ask whether the wish has been achieved or whether the question has been answered.
PITFALLS:
- Your focus got stuck on what a condition to achieve the wish and not the ultimate wish itself.
- The wish is not an essential wish, not something the client deeply wants.
- The wish is actually already accomplished, or very easy to accomplish.
Step 4: Exploring the situation surrounding the wish
When the wish of the client is clear, you’re going to explore the situation around that wish. You are going to gather facts. For yourself as a coach and for the client you want to have a clear sense of what else possibly revolves around this situation. Important exploratory questions could be:
- Since when is your current situation no longer satisfying? In other words, when did this wish arise?
- What has changed since that moment?
- When was it still good, in balance, satisfactory?
- What made it balanced?
- Do you also encounter this dilemma in other parts of your life?
- Since when have you been struggling with this problem?
- How does this struggle affect you?
- How does it influence your behavior?
- Have you asked for support before?
- What did that bring you?
Finish this phase by letting your client repeat the wish once again and ask which question is linked to it.
Attention
It’s very likely that a lot will be shared in this first stage. Invite the client often to repeat back to you what they said and do this yourself as well (paraphrasing): occasionally summarize what you’ve heard and check whether you understood correctly.
PITFALLS
- The coach starts thinking along.
- The coach already asks solution-oriented questions, such as: what do you need to... This is not (yet) relevant. We are only concerned in becoming conscious of what is and what is not. This simply requires the coach to be very curious.
- Step 1 & 2 will often mix somewhat. That’s fine, however, the danger is that you focus too much on step 2 and not enough on formulating the wish. Pay attention to this! Make sure you have a clear notion of what the wish is within about 20 minutes.
- You try to formulate the wish too precisely. This way you can also get stuck. Then just ask: what do you want most? Very specifically?
About observing
Careful observation forms the base of professional coaching: Observing, observing, observing without prejudice, to then guide your client in observing and acknowledging their own behaviour and feelings. Only through non-judgemental observation of your own behaviour do you gain essential insights needed to find solutions to your dilemma. Always allow enough time and space for this to happen.
Step 5 : Going back to the present moment
We go back to the present moment by standing still. The coach asks the following questions:
- How is it to suddenly stand still, what do you feel?
- Calmly look around you and use all your senses to become aware of your surroundings, in silence. What do you smell, what do you hear, what do you feel, what do you see? Take your time.
- Make a 360-degree circle whilst telling me what you see. Only what you see, and not the thoughts related to it. So, no associations or labels (beautiful, ugly, calm, reminds me of... none of this) Pure perception of what is.
Attention
As soon as you notice that the client is associating or assigning a value to what they see, you immediately bring them back to simply noticing. "Simply tell me what you literally see." And again: take all the time you need!
Why?
The above exercise is meant to bring the client back to the present moment. You may have noticed that during the conversation the focus was directed mainly to the thoughts in their head and they were probably barely aware of their surroundings. The exercise is an important preparation for the next step.
Step 6: Invitation to find a symbol for the wish
Ask the client to identify something in the surrounding environment that symbolizes their wish. Don’t forget to repeat the wish like you did previously. Make sure to mention it should symbolise the future, when the wish will be fully realised.
Step 7: Describing the image
Start by inviting the client to describe the characteristics of the chosen symbol. Very literally. In the same way as with the 360-degree circle. What do you see in the image? What do you notice? Then ask (in your own way) the following questions:
- Can you describe the characteristics of the image? Literally?
- What does this image say about your wish? (and again, repeat the client's wish in your own words)
- When you think about your wish and look at the image, what does each element in the image stand for? > (In other words: How does it translate to reality?)
- What do you notice about the position of the symbol and its relationship to its surroundings?
- What do you see when you look at the symbol from a different angle, does that change anything for you?
- What do you discover when you look at it closely? How does this make you feel?
- Think of additional questions yourself
Step 8: Invitation to step in the future
Finally, invite the client to come standing in the middle of the image and experience how it feels there. > this is the actual goal of this exercise: to let the client connect completely with that wish and to physically feel what it would be like to have that wish completely realised.
Make sure you slow down here. Give your client time. Don’t ask too many questions. Simply: How does it feel? Or: What is happening now?
Focus points
- Remember that we are merely exploring the image and aren’t yet concerned with how to realise that wish. If you notice the client is heading in that direction, bring their attention back to the image. The purpose is that the client feels the freedom to fully imagine what it would be like when their wish were to manifest. To, just for a moment, picture themselves in the future and almost physically experience how that would feel.
- Something can be part of the symbol by chance and without meaning. However, it can become meaningful by asking the client which associations come to mind. Every detail can thus be a nice gateway to questions that bring more awareness.
- With these types of exercises, the client often tends to use abstract terms. Make the answers specific again and again by linking them to everyday reality. MAKING THIS SPECIFIC IS ESSENTIAL in the process. Do this with questions such as:
- Can you give me an example?
- What does this make you do exactly?
- What/who are you referring to now?
- Can you translate that to a specific/particular situation?
- How do you picture that?
- How does that relate to your wish?
PITFALLS
- The client hasn’t placed the wish in the future (and you didn’t correct this), and therefore they get stuck on all the roadblocks ahead. It’s vital to make sure the client can feel what it would be like when the wish has been fully realised.
- You are not asking open questions. This often means that you have an idea that something “must” lead to a specific outcome.> Stay open and curious!
Open questions are those that begin with:
-
- What
- Where
- When
- Which
- What makes... (instead of “why” > “why” asks for a justification and that is something you will want to avoid)
- How
Closed questions are only answerable with Yes or No, and are therefore suggestive.
- You start associating for the client > You can state what you notice, but as a coach you do not give it meaning. Leave it to the client to make an association.
- You forget to link the question to the situation that the image symbolises. You can ask, for example: What does the broken branch mean? But you won't really get much further with this. Preferable would be: What does that broken branch say about your wish? Repeat regularly that this is the symbol of their wish, and always repeat what that wish is about in reality. You don’t simply say “the wish”, but for instance “The current practice”, or “Being fully confident at work”. Then the question becomes more linked to the wish. You then proceed to say: What does that broken branch say about you when you are fully confident at work? Do you see the difference?
- You forget to make the answers specific. Answers such as: This represents my growth, this is the rotting process, this is my desire for light ... Make sure to clarify. What exactly did you grow in? What is rotting exactly? What do you see differently in your life when there is light? > Also here it’s important to ask the client to link to the topic in question.
- A very common one: you’re going too fast. > Slow down, slow down, slow down!
- You forget to stay connected to the symbol during the conversation. By doing this the conversation can quickly turn to focussing too much on thoughts, and it becomes more of an analytical conversation.
Step 9: Exploring the willingness
When your client can really imagine what it feels like when the wish is manifested, you ask: On a scale from 1 to 10, how much willingness do you feel to realise this wish?
Respect each choice, but if there is a 5 or less you can explain that for a successful coaching trajectory there needs to be sufficient motivation.
Again: At this stage it’s very important to leave your client in silence and to refrain from asking more questions. Allow for the necessary time here.
Step 10: Exploring the outcome & finalising
While walking, you will (once again) explore what the effects would be if that dream did indeed come true:
- How will it affect you?
- What will it give you?
- What will there be more or less of?
- What will then change?
- What will this mean for your relationships?
- How will this affect your health?
Come to a close by asking your client to summarise all insights of this session and conclude with the promise that next time you will look carefully at what is keeping from realising their wish.
