When I was building my coaching business, and the practice of being a coach, gathering feedback was an important part of my client agreement. It still is.
There are different ways to gather feedback, and I thought about what would feel useful to me, and also shareable with others, to help them understand what working with me might be like. So for the last few years, after every coaching engagement I ask my client:
What 3 words would you use to describe the benefits you received from working together?
So many words have been shared with me, and every one of them is a small insight into that client’s experience. I’ve found it insightful, valuable and fortifying to hear, even in such a short format.
Here they all are:
The most frequent: Clarity. Courage. Confidence. Insight. Motivation.
What strikes me about that list is where people started. The people who come to me usually arrive in a transition, somewhere between what has shifted and what comes next: feeling stuck, demotivated, lost, uncertain. That they go on to describe the work with words like clarity, courage and confidence says something about the distance a coaching relationship can cover.
The difference between what someone feeling stuck and lost can believe and do, and what the same person can believe and do feeling clear and motivated, is significant. It can open trajectories that didn’t look possible before.
The shape of it tends to be the same shape as the transition coaching itself: first making sense of what’s going on, then understanding what sits beneath it, then finding direction, then moving. The three words are what that process leaves behind.
Here are some of the more detailed definitions clients have shared with me, word for word:
Confidence
“The ability to reframe a belief — a lot of our discussions centred around confidence. Our conversations have sparked an interest in reframing an ‘idea’, e.g. how can I turn this around, what is possible?”
Courage
“This could also be replaced with self-belief. You helped me own my future, and step up to things like it was my responsibility to change the way things were going, because as an adult, nobody else is going to believe in you if you don’t believe in yourself.”
Insights
“You helped me look into things in a new way, seeing connections I hadn’t seen before. I found it invaluable going into such depth on some things like values that are typically handled so superficially.”
Self Awareness
“This has developed considerably in such a short space of time. I am starting to recognise behaviours that I can address.”
Acceptance
“I felt valued throughout our sessions. I was able to use the time to reflect on how I react in certain situations. You were able to accept this and challenge me to think of a way forward or how I could react differently. ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway’ style!”
If you’re somewhere between stuck and clear right now, and any of those words name something you’re short of, a first conversation is free, takes about 30 minutes, and is a good way to find out whether this kind of work is what your situation needs.
