Notice in your sessions how often clients will say something that rhymes with:
“Yeah, I really should…” or
“I think it would be great if I got in the habit of…”.
They might even use more committed language, like:
“I’m going to…”,
“I gonna start…” or even
“I will…”
Whether things are murmured to themselves or are said clearly to you as a proud declaration, they reliably succeed in earning an encouraging bit of positive feedback.
The catch is that these statements are made by your clients with an implicit understanding that you as coach aren’t writing them down, and thus won’t be holding them to it in any shape or form. Assuming they are not idly posturing, whatever they’re saying is at best a promise your client is making to themselves, something they perceive to be genuinely worth doing and aspire to follow through on.
It’s easy to break a promise made only to yourself. If it is not outright forgotten within five minutes, it’s easy to rationalize away as a mere “nice idea” you had earlier that one time.
By contrast if we make a promise to someone else, and that person is listening for us to follow through and succeed, we are much less likely to forget it or cast it aside.
Us clients are getting glimmers of what would effectively move us forward during your sessions all the time. When we mention something we know for ourselves would be worth doing, do us this favor of upgrading those self-promises to a promise we make to you. Write it down, set a deadline, make sure we are clear that you are always listening for us to follow through on what we say matters.
Actions captured in CoachAccountable live well beyond 5 minutes. They’re visible as THE ACTION PLAN to both you and your clients, easy to review in-app whenever. Deadlines and reminders keep your client aware of whatever they’ve said they’re going to do.
So when clients make such declarations in your sessions, you can stop the action and let them know you’re capturing it as an Action item for them. Ask them for a suitable deadline, and perhaps offer to set a reminder or two for them, and then that utterance has been put into existence as something to actually do.
You can also instruct them to take a beat and set up whatever they said for themselves. Either way, it’s now going to live on as a genuine, captured intention that can be managed. Supported. Cheered on. Celebrated when fulfilled.
