Professional coaching is a lot of work on its own. The most valuable aspect of this job is our client’s performance; we draw strength from our client’s progressive growth. Whether we are working on their personal or professional life, there is much work to be done there, especially in psychology with human emotions and feelings.
To be a great coach requires seeing through your client’s current predicaments, understanding who they truly are, and driving positive energy into them, using some powerful questions in coaching which we have carefully arranged in this piece.
There are some natural professional conversational tones you must apply to help you relate well with them; that way, you can discover that side of them that needs attention – and when you get there, reach out, make them also see that beautiful side of them they have been missing.
But then, there are questions to help achieve this feat. As coaches, we use a lot of questionnaires to evaluate our clients, to get into their heads, and to understand them better. In this niche, you can’t walk alone; you both need each other to achieve a common goal.
Life coaching is a serious business because it deals with human emotions. If you are conversant with how human emotions work, you will understand that it is as fragile as it sounds. So, as a prospective life coach, it is only rational if you first understand how delicate this job is before making the first step towards taking it as a career.
Again, just as a coach cannot do without asking strategically organised questions to their clients, there are also questions for a life coach wishing to succeed in this niche. We have taken the liberty of detailing some of the questions for these clients, hoping that, as an aspiring life coach, you will have a clue about how this profession works. In this piece, we have detailed these questions according to their relevance.
50 Powerful Coaching Questions For All Coaches
1. Goals
This kind of question usually comes to light when you want to move to the next stage of a cross-examination session. And you must tread carefully to avoid contradicting the principles of the coaching profession. It would be best if you try to understand how confident your clients are with their goals. The more confident they are, the higher their chances of getting there. But if their confidence is too low, that’s where you should come in.
Recommended Coaching Questions to Ask:
- What action will make the biggest impact on the situation?
- What are the low points or pain points of your goals?
- How will it affect your life if you’d change your goals?
- What will be the implication if you don’t adjust these goals?
- What are your plans for reaching your goals?
2. Reality
Everyone has that embarrassing part of them that they wouldn’t want anybody to know about, and your clients are no exception. This question is one of the ways you help your clients achieve self-realisation. As a professional coach, you owe your clients the duty to help them realise the principles of “actions and consequences.” This will help them understand the delicate nature of the actions they take.
Recommended Coaching Questions to Ask:
- If you do this, how would you like people to respond to it?
- What does your heart say about the situation?
- Which event do you think may change everything?
- Are you struggling to reach the current goal you set for yourself?
- How have you changed the world?
- Have you ever had such an experience before now?
3. Way Forward
We usually bring up this question when we want to take the client on a journey to the future. As a coach, you have to help them develop strategies and solutions that have a proactive effect. As part of your training as a life coach, you will be taught the basic coaching tools, which have to do with making sure that the interviewer understands the situation. This question lets you know whether the client clearly understands the situation.
Recommended Best Coaching Questions to Ask:
- What are those factors preventing you from taking action?
- How best will you deal with this issue to avoid it resurfacing in the future?
- If you were given another chance, what would you do differently?
- Is this a strength or a weakness?
- What’s the worst that can happen if you take this path, and how well can you handle it?
4. Powerful Coaching Questions to Start Off your Session
As life coaches, before you start a session, there are some first coaching session questions to start the process with. Some of these questions include:
Before you start your coaching session, there are some major questions you must consider. Some of them include:
- How are you today?
- What would you like to talk about today?
- How would you like us to spend our time today?
- What goal would you like to achieve today?
- What are your thoughts today?
- Do you understand this problem and the effect it will have on you?
5. Some Coaching Questions to End the Session
At the end of every session, we often encounter situations where our clients are in a dilemma to take a certain step. Asking them some relevant questions helps them understand their decision better; it creates an atmosphere where they can listen to their thoughts. Also, be careful not to be judgemental with whatever response they give you. Some of these questions include:
- What do you think we should have done differently in our conversation today?
- What are the key elements to take away from today’s session?
- Was there something you wanted to share with me today?
- What was the best part of the conversation today?
- Which of the points highlighted today would you want to hold until our next meeting?
6. Some Coaching Questions to Get your Clients Thinking
These questions aim to understand their thoughts about a particular situation. It is also a way to get them to rethink and to review certain actions they have taken. Some of these questions include:
- Who else is a victim?
- What is your gut feeling saying about the situation?
- Tell me more about this (or that).
- Did you think about this?
- What do you know, but you just don’t want to tell me?
7. Questions to make your clients feel relieved
This is where you have to be alert to psychologically examine every client before or during each session. The reason is to understand when they are tense so you can keep them motivated and feel free throughout the whole process. But in a situation where the reason behind their tense outlook is influenced by the environment, you should also be in a position to correct it using the right questions.
- How do you now feel about this?
- And how has doing this made you feel now?
- So, what’s the implication if you continue this way?
- What is the best way to respond to this?
- What challenges are you correctly facing?
- And how well will things go if you do things differently?
8. Coaching Questions to Prepare them for the future
To pull this off, these people that come to you do not need a temporary solution. They need a solution that will outlive their current situation. So, as a certified life coach, you are expected to make them see the future from their present using the right questions. These questions include:
- How do you imagine your future?
- How do you see yourself living in the future if you were to be given all you need in life?
- What’s the best thing that can happen to you?
- If given the opportunity, would you want to explore your dreams?
9. Coaching questions to motivate your clients
Before you can help your clients achieve their life goals, you must get them motivated. Here, motivation is everything; you need the right questions to pull it off. And before you commence with these questions, make sure they too, see reasons to stay motivated. These questions include:
- Have you had this problem before, and how did you solve it?
- What are the principles you feel are your obstacles?
- What are your happiest moments?
- What if you change your principles a bit? What will they be?
- What would you sacrifice for your dreams?
Final Thoughts
As a professional life coach, you can’t stop asking questions; these are your tools for understanding your clients and helping them deal with their life issues. In this job, you have to ask your way through every single answer you need from the clients.
There are some powerful questions in coaching. There are ones to understand a person’s present conditions and plans and there are other coaching questions to ask clients to understand their entire psychological structure.
It is also very important to mention that the questions we listed above are the few major ones, moreover, there are another hundred more like it recommended by certified life coaching experts.
You need to emotionally connect with your clients to understand them better; connecting with them will build trust, and only then can they feel secure enough to open up to share their thoughts with you. Finally, don’t just ask any questions; ask deep relevant ones and don’t forget to keep them motivated throughout each session.
