A Coaching Model By Anna Schwaiger, Life Coach, CANADA
Connect-Accept-Be, How to Get Back in the Drivers Seat of Your Life
Many women feel like they’re not in the driver’s seat of their own life. They feel overwhelmed and powerless. Stress and worry are impacting their happiness and relationships, and they’re asking themselves:
“Who am I? Is this the life I want to be living?”
All too often, we as women feel the pressure to be perfect, to put everything and everyone before our own needs, and forget about what we want from life.
In my coaching practice, I help self-conscious women gain the confidence they need to make the right choices for themselves and live a life of balance, joy, and connection.
Connect-Accept-Be Guides Women Through a Self-Discovery Process
My coaching model Connect–Accept–Be guides women through a self-discovery process with the goal of empowerment and “getting them back into the driver’s seat” through:
- Connecting with themselves
- Accepting themselves, and eventually
- Being who they are
The client will go through the same process within every coaching session and throughout the coaching process.
This first phase aims for the clients to find connections to themselves, their emotions, fears, needs, values, goals, vision, who they are, and what they want from life. There must be a good rapport between client and coach, and it is my responsibility as the coach to make the client feel seen and heard and experience empathy and understanding for who they are.
Assessment and goal questions let the client connect to their presenting issues, resources, and goals through coaching.
- What are your best hopes for the coaching process?
- What could be helpful?
Scaling questions are essential to measure the client’s success and progress, create goals and a vision of where they want to be in the future.
- On a scale from 1-10, where 1 is not confident, and 10 is very confident, where do you see yourself right now?
- Where would you like to be in 1 month/ 6 months/ 1 year from now?
The Miracle question can be used to find out about the most urgent issue, the client’s desired future, and what steps could be taken to achieve that.
- Imagine you go to bed in the evening and overnight a miracle happens, and the problem that brought you to coaching has disappeared. You wake up in the morning, not knowing that the miracle has happened. What would be different?
- How would you notice that indeed a miracle has happened?
Emotion-questions let the client get in touch with their emotions and inner voices to find out and feel what’s happening inside them.
- Where does the emotion sit in your body? What does it look like?
- What do you think is the purpose of this emotion?
In this phase, the client finds out about their strengths and power. Higher levels of self-awareness and confidence help them find more acceptance and appreciation for their authentic self. Self-love, self-compassion, and self-kindness are built up gradually within the session and over a more extended time during the coaching process.
Exemption questions let the client know that their problem is not always present, and they can be used as a template for success.
- When do you feel confident?
- What is different at those times? How come?
Strength questions focus on what is working well in the client’s life to find out what is in their control and power.
- What gives you energy?
- What is working well now?
Scaling questions are used to measure and show the client’s success throughout the coaching process; they automatically suggest that things could be worse, they give hope, and they break up black-and-white thinking.
- How did you manage to get to a 6?
- What will you need to reach a 7?
Emotion-questions are used in the connect-phase and the accept-phase. We give the emotions a voice and let them speak to increase feelings of self-compassion and self-love.
- If you listen closely, what is your anxiety/ fear/ anger… telling you?
- What does the anxious/ scared/ angry part inside of you need from you?
Inner-voice-questions are a great way to connect the client to their critical inner self. By gaining awareness of their inner critic, they will also increase self-compassion and self-love.
- What or who is telling you that it has to be that way/ that you should do that?
- How do you know that this is true?
In this last stage, I guide the client towards feeling safe to be who they are and take gentle steps to show their authentic self in their life and relationships. As a result, the client becomes more confident in making the right choices for themselves, creating balance, deeper relationships, and gaining control over their lives.
The Six-months-from-now question can be helpful to find out about concrete steps the client can take right now and build up self-compassion.
- Imagine yourself six months from now. What would (Client name) in six months from now like to tell you?
- Suppose, six months from now, you are looking back, and you say to yourself: “If only I had done this-and-that six months ago, my problems would be sorted out by now.” What would this-and-that be?
Learning questions are essential for the coaching process. The client goes through many emotions, awareness, shifts in perspective, and learning, and it is crucial to take the knowledge forward.
- What are you learning about yourself with this new awareness?
- What opens up with this new learning?
Action questions guide the client from reflection to action. For example, goals might be – depending on the client’s situation – living with more authenticity and confidence, feeling in control, having deeper connections in their relationships, or creating balance in their life.
- What are some steps you can take now? What else?
- What support will you need?
- What will you need to feel safe for those next steps?
Celebrating-success questions make the client realize what they’ve achieved already. In addition, they increase feelings of self-worth and inner strength.
- How are you feeling about what you’ve achieved?
- How would you like to celebrate your success?
Learn How to Create Your Own Coaching Model
Your Coaching Model reflects your values,
philosophies and beliefs and must communicate who you will coach
and the problems you will solve. Read more about creating your coaching model