Curiosity is a tool common to all helping professions, it is especially important in well-being coaching because asking questions out of curiosity will often cause the client to become more aware of what is really going on.
By being curious and asking powerful questions it enables the client to take the lid off their limiting habits and beliefs to discover new ways. This gives them a remarkably freeing up experience, as the old energies of habits and behaviours that are keeping them stuck can be shifted leaving the client ready willing and able to take inspired action to be the best they can be with optimal well-being.
Being curious, inquisitive and interested is a natural talent. Like all natural talents
some people have a stronger sense of curiosity than others. The good news is curiosity can be developed like our muscles, by exercising - something we are all
familiar with. The first step is simply becoming aware of yourself paying attention, to being curious and inquisitive.
As Personal Trainers, we are so accustomed to think we have to know the answers, in a coaching role you have to stop asking questions as an expert and simply ask out of curiosity. It is great practice to be curious in the first meeting you have with a client.
Nothing is more engaging for prospective clients than a coach's genuine curiosity in them.
Curiosity makes them feel special, their lives worth exploring, and their issues worthy of work. Curiosity is always present in your on going sessions, it is a means for uncovering new answers and new areas to explore. Knowing that you will initiate change by simply being curious means that you need to make room in the session for this kind of curiosity.
Once you have mastered great coaching skills, often you will find a natural progression would be to offer a programme of individual coaching sessions to your client, where you explore this work.
We know that looking at all areas of a client’s life is far more effective than only focusing on the health and fitness area.
What we have to do is practice a different way of asking. In the Personal Training industry we are very conditioned to ‘telling’ and it does require practice to be able to switch to ‘asking’. Start your questions with “ I wonder…?”, “I am interested to know…?”, and “I am curious about… “Tell me more about… Notice how it changes the conversation process, this way there is a playfulness and a sense that when the answer emerges it is always the right one because the client came up with it themselves and is open to further questioning and drilling down to reveal new things.
The interesting thing about opening your sentences to the client this way, is it causes us to go looking. We naturally draw our client’s attention to the areas that we are interested in, like the client’s passion, habits, behaviours, life purpose, values and level of consciousness. Being curious about these things is not the same as just gathering information. For example, a question to gain information would be “ How much exercise do you need each week?”
A curious question to begin personal exploration would be “What would being ‘fit’ look like to you?
The questioning style to avoid at all costs is the one that gives you a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer. As this just takes you down a dead end street and possibly another roadblock. And you have to start all over again! Questions that are asked from being interested, curious and just plain inquisitive are open ended, take the client on a journey and are simply phrased to avoid those roadblocks!
Let’s take our clients on a journey by asking them open-ended leading questions.
Another example: A closed question “It sounds like you are stuck between the choices you have suggested, is that true?” A curious question “ What’s another choice you could make besides the two you have suggested?”
Clients know when you are asking a question with the ‘correct’ answer in mind. Their intuitive sense tells them when there is a correct response, this leaves them two choices, either resist or try to recognise the answer that they think you are looking for.
From our childhood conditioning we have learnt the phrase ‘Curiosity killed the cat’ so we have the understanding that somehow being curious will get us into trouble. Over time we have marked our questioning by being careful what we ask people and we try to not let our curiosity get the better of us.
In our client sessions asking curious open-ended questions is the best way to coach. You are joining the client in a quest to find out what is going on for them, you are exploring their map of the world without imposing yours on theirs. In other words you are coaching from ‘clean’ energy. You don’t have any answers you are just exploring and you presume the client knows the appropriate answers and has the resources to come up with them. By finding the answers themselves they become far more capable to take the next inspired action steps.
In your role as a coach/trainer your questions propose a direction for looking and the client’s attention is then drawn in that direction. With each new question you are encouraging the next exploration – do I go this way or that way? Being curious is two things, not being attached to a particular path or destination and yet always being intentional about moving towards the light to find meaning, values, purpose and wholeness.
Be aware of the energy shifts in the conversation, such as anger, irritation, judgement, fun etc, use these as clues to be curious and intuitive and drill down until the client comes up with the answers for themselves.
An example of a coaching conversation led from the curiosity of the Trainer/Coach.
Trainer/Coach: You tell me every week you want to lose 2 or 3 pounds, every time you come to see me you don’t do anything different during the week.
Client: I am fed up with my weight and I hate my muffin top! I am enjoying coming to my sessions, but it’s just not happening when I am not here.
Trainer/Coach: What is stopping you doing this?
Client: I just don’t have the time to exercise during sessions.
Trainer/Coach: So, what does not having time to exercise mean to you?
Client: I feel like I have failed every week! It seems as though I can never get passed this point. It is something I have done in the past, I start something and not be able to see it through.
Trainer/Coach: When you do manage to exercise – what does that mean to you?
Client: It makes me feel good doing something for myself and for those around me who I know want me to take care of my health because they worry about my inactivity and my weight.
Trainer/Coach: What kinds of thoughts come in to your head when you think about going to exercise.
Client: Most thoughts are around time and I can’t be bothered it feels like too much effort!
Trainer/Coach: How would you like it to be?
Client: I want to have the discipline of sticking to my programme when I am not here.
Trainer/Coach: What exactly would work for you?
Client: Once before I had a mate to go out walking with, I really enjoyed that. It is having someone to do something with.
Trainer/Coach: How can you make that happen?
Client: I could ask at work to see if anyone would want to commit to coming walking with me at lunchtime. I could put a notice up.
Linda Moseley
The 12 Action Steps Programme Programme from The Coaching Gym
www.coachingforpersonaltrainers.com
