A Strong Positive Client Message!

 

I promote my work as a Personal Development Coach on a popular referral site. Prospective clients can take a look at my profile and read some referrals, then decide if we might be a good fit for each other. Pam (not her real name) contacted me; she was concerned about her son, Philip who left university with an in-demand masters’ degree but was finding it difficult to focus on what to do next.

My usual approach is to connect prospective clients to an online strengths survey. Once completed I’m able to use this to discuss how we might use existing strengths to help us navigate our way through some of our challenges.

We also use this as a baseline to consider the strength areas we don’t reach out to, and how we might begin to incorporate them in our behaviours.

Over 5 sessions we have looked at how our strengths can be used to

·         Increase our awareness of our potential by “real time” discussion of where we have used them well.

·         Opened an awareness of what can happen if we overplay/underplay our strengths.

·         Used our strengths to inform how we might handle difficult/challenging situation namely “Stepping Out of Our Comfort Zones”

·         Examined how we perform in conflict/tense situations by referring to a well-established analytical model

·         Considered how we might need to adapt a flexible behavioural approach to dealing with challenge

·         Looked at the role of Emotional Intelligence in achieving great outcomes

·         Developed a powerful, positive personal narrative

Phil as been engaged and open in his appreciation of our work. He has stated that his confidence in a better place and that our programme should be made available to all students leaving Uni! Generous but there are capacity issues!

What do I think has happened? I feel it’s likely that as a coach, I’ve been able to create some thinking space for Phil to explore how he can use his strengths, new understandings and transferable experience to help him access the future he wants.

I’m keen to share my approaches with anyone who would like to increase their confidence, resilience and self-awareness. I can be reached by responding to this piece, DM or by emailing jpd@dy3solutions.mygbiz.com .
It would be great to hear from you!