This blog post has been authored by Krista Kathleen, Build Your Life Coaching Biz with Krista
Do you ever have that coaching client that will talk and talk and talk and tell endless stories to where you are wondering in your mind “When will this madness end? When will you get to the point?!”
Maybe you started off the coaching session by asking: “What do you want to focus on today?” And that’s the last question you were able to get in before the 60 minutes were up.
This is something that I struggled with for years with some of my personal clients wondering why they were being so rude, not letting me actually coach them.
I also didn’t want to appear rude to them either.
So I would quietly sit on the other side of the computer screen and occasionally nod and mumble “Mmmmhmmm” and “Tell me more” hoping that they could read my mind that this session was going nowhere.
I was taught in my training that clients pay us to actively listen to them so I thought I was doing a great service by giving them space to ramble on with all the extraordinary details of their day to day agenda.
But what I didn’t realize was that I was enabling their defense mechanism.
The more the client talks, the more they can avoid having to get to the heart of their real issues (whether they realize they are doing this or not!).
And our clients aren’t paying us good money to listen to their stories! They’re paying for us to help them solve their challenges.
So today I give you permission to start practicing lovingly interrupting your clients so you can help them to achieve transformative results in their life.
Here are some phrases you can use to break up the monologue:
“I’m not going to need all the details here. What I’m most interested in is finding out what’s the REAL challenge for you?”
“Let me jump in quickly and ask you a question – what’s the real challenge here for you?”
“I can hear there’s a lot going on here. In the interest of time, what’s the real challenge here for you?”
“I’m just going to cut in here for a moment and ask – What’s the real challenge in dealing with (person/situation) for you?”
“With everything you just shared with me – what most stands out for you?”
I know it can be incredibly uncomfortable interrupting people and it can go against your moral values especially when you were taught your entire life to not interrupt conversations.
But your clients are investing a lot of money and time to have you help them break up patterns that are no longer serving them.
I promise it will get easier to interrupt people with more practice…and your clients will greatly thank you for it!
Inspired from The Advice Trap by Michael Bungay Stanier
Krista Kathleen is a Professionally Certified Life Coach, Business Mentor, Hypnotherapist, and a new mamma. She is based in St. Louis, MO but is also location independent and enjoys working with clients while traveling all over the world. Krista has shown hundreds of women how to confidently start using their gifts and turning them into profitable online coaching businesses. In addition to coaching she leads women’s retreats, teaches yoga and enjoys long hot baths while devouring her favorite TV shows.