Pointing Out Behavior That Gets in the Way Without Shaming

If you read my earlier post called “To Coach a Friend or Not to Coach a Friend”, here’s the update. Friend and I had an appt. yesterday at 10a.m. I had offered to place the call because I have flat rate long distance service and I offer that to all of my clients if they want it. So I called at 10 and the line was busy. I called at 10:03, 10:05 and 10:08. Same result. Then I wrote the following email:

Hi,

I’ve tried your number now about 4 or 5 times for our 10a.m. call this morning. It’s busy. It’s looking like you have a lot of resistance going on to this coaching relationship. You’ve forgotten an appt, had a repair man appear at the time of the call and now the phone’s busy. No blame. Just something for you to investigate. However, I don’t want this to affect our relationship so I leave it to you to contact me and you will probably have to kind of talk me into the efficacy of this part of our relationship. Hope all is well. I’m off to Curves.

She called later. She wrote about what is happening with her and took responsibility. But for now I want to deal with how the coach handles the situation. This is tricky business. Even though you are hired to help a client overcome their resistance or uncover and meet their goals and speak the truth as you see it, there is a fine line you walk as a coach.

Will it be too much for them to handle? Will they retreat, blame you (even just in their mind) and quit coaching? Or will they be glad you are helping them move forward through the tough stuff? There are no right answers here. It takes experience, awareness, self-confidence, a strong bond with your client and probably many things I’m not thinking of right now.

Results in this case? Our friendship is unimpaired. I may provide some support but she won’ t feel guilty or unsupported and I won’t feel drained or overly responsible for her. I consider this a success.

Taking Responsibility for the Negative and the Positive You Create

One of the things I teach my clients and practice myself is taking responsibility. I believe we fully create our lives by our thoughts and feelings. However, I don’t require my clients to believe like I do. I just ask them to try that perspective out and see if it works for them. So far, no one’s declined. So it is definitely a filter I coach from.I’ve pretty much mastered being able to point out a client’s responsibility and whatever that entails without creating defensiveness. It’s probably because my clients trust me and I have a gentle manner but speak the truth as I see it (which is what they are paying me for.)

But taking responsibility – which tends to take a bad rap because for most of us it implies blame of some sort – also supports taking responsibility for creating the good in your life. You get to take credit for creating your raise, your well-brought up kids, your sterling attendance record, your millions, your wise investments, your learning to deal with the 120 high school students you teach. You and everybody else get to take credit for it all.

Maybe I’ll start a campaign or write a book called Taking Credit which teaches the self-empowerment that comes from taking responsibility for all of it.