Coaching Methods for Stimulating Financial Shifts
To assist clients in the areas of sustainable consumerism and financial abundance, coaches can have experience in a wide array of niches including money coaching, investment coaching, abundance coaching, sustainability coaching, career coaching, creativity coaching, law of attraction coaching, transformational coaching, entrepreneurial coaching, and life coaching in general. Coaches can either come from a niche that ties into spending consciously and creating an abundant life or come from a niche completely different from these issues and still be able to shift mindsets and enforce positive changes in the lives of your clients in these areas. All coaching, regardless of niche, deals with shifting mindsets, goal setting, empowerment, creating awareness, and holding clients accountable.(20)
Clients will sometimes have negative thoughts or feelings around money that will contribute to their inability to achieve financial stability or a feeling of abundance.
For instance, a client might hold such limiting beliefs as:
All of the above examples have one thing in common: the sense of helplessness. These clients feel victimized, but they are the victims of their own limitations due to their money mindsets. When clients hold these mindsets, they often choose to focus on events in their lives or in the lives of others that reinforce these beliefs. A simple shift in their mindset can literally change the way in which they perceive and interact within the world around them.
Unlike other professionals, coaches can help create awareness and shift limiting mindsets in order to present new ways of thinking while opening clients to new opportunities and ways to overcome their perceived limitations. The following open-ended questions may present some ideas that can help coaches assist clients to better understand their limiting beliefs and reasons for inaction or disempowered actions: How does this approach benefit you? What do you gain from these actions or inaction? If you could give this feeling a voice, what would it be called? What message does this voice have for you?
Once the cause of these negative feelings and behaviors have been addressed, coaches can begin to shift the client’s feelings toward a more positive outlook. The following are some examples of powerful questions to shift mindsets and behaviors: You mentioned how your current mindset serves you; what would serve you better?What could you learn from this situation?Where is the opportunity in this situation? How could you approach the situation differently? What mindsets and behaviors will support you in reaching your goals?
One beautiful difference between coaches and other similar professions is the ability to partner with and empower clients to become the masters of their own financial situations. Instead of handling a client’s problem for them or having a client select from a hat a one-size-fits all solution, clients get to explore their own strengths and determine what they want in their financial future. Coaches can empower clients using by reframing situations and make them less overwhelming, transform a challenge into an opportunity, or make a client feel larger than the situation.
Coaches can then help clients find structures that will help them succeed, such as simplifying goals into more easily digestible tasks or steps, utilizing timers or schedules, mantras or positive affirmations, visualizations of success, monitor spending and goal targets, and discovering how to save money in little ways every day. Coaches can also help clients develop structures to help hold them accountable, such as having clients discuss their financial goals with their family, supporting clients through e-mail access in case they run into problems during the week, sending a mid-week reminder of your clients’ weekly steps, and checking in with your clients each session to monitor their progress and discuss what needs to be changed or added to ensure their success.
Inspiring Change, One Client at a Time
Coaching provides a unique opportunity to shift a person’s awareness of the ways in which a client perceives and interacts with money. This heightened awareness will benefit the client in his or her confidence and financial endeavors. His or her new money mindset and emanated confidence will then inspire others who interact with your client on a regular basis. These individuals may even change some of their ways and impact those who interact with them and so forth. Imagine, with all the clients you will coach, how many lives you can impact!Thus arises a new sustainable economy consisting of conscious consumers who create confidence, abundance, and value wherever they spend, speak, and live. Each of them, aware of their relationship with money and the way their money decisions impact the world.
References:
(1) GoodReads: Quotes About Change https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/change
(2) Economy Watch: GDP Growth http://www.economywatch.com/gdp-growth
(3) PolicyMic: US GDP is 70 Percent Personal Consumption: Inside the Numbers
(4) NerdWallet: Finance: American Household Credit Card Debt Statistics: 2013
(5) Merriam-Webster Dictionary: “Consumerism” definition
(6) Food Marketing Institute: Conscious Consumers Are Changing the Rules of Marketing. Are You Ready? Highlights from the BBMG Conscious Consumer Report: Bemporad, Raphael and Mitch Baranowski https://www.fmi.org/docs/sustainability/BBMG_Conscious_Consumer_White_Paper.pdf
(7) Organic Consumers Association: Organic Food Boom Continues: 17 July 2007
(8) ABC30: Green Cleaning Business Boom: 23 January 2014
(9) GreenBiz: How the Sustainability Boom Changes Business as Usual for Green Suppliers: 14 September 2011: Christopher Miles http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2011/09/14/how-sustainability-boom-changes-business-usual-green-suppliers
(10) The Week: Get Ready for a Massive Renewable Energy Boom: 17 December 2013 http://theweek.com/article/index/254215/get-ready-for-a-massive-renewable-energy-boom
(11) Google Trends: “DIY” Interest Over Time: “News Headlines” and “Forecast” as of February 2014
(12) Google Trends: “Do It Yourself” Interest Over Time: “News Headlines” and “Forecast” as of February 2014
(13) PBS: America Revealed: Lesson 2: The DIY Boom: A Hands-On Look at the New Industrial Revolution http://www.pbs.org/america-revealed/teachers/lesson-plan/2/
(14) The Christian Science Monitor: The Monitor's View: The Shared Economy's Growth Spurt: January 2014 http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2014/0102/The-shared-economy-s-growth-spurt
(15) Forbes: The Rise of the Sharing Economy: 28 October 2013 http://www.forbes.com/sites/gyro/2013/10/28/the-rise-of-the-shared-economy/
(16) Chron: A Credit Counselor's Job Description http://work.chron.com/credit-counselors-job-description-12968.html
(17) Investopedia: Why You Never Hear From Your Financial Planner http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0610/why-you-never-hear-from-your-financial-planner.aspx
(18) Investopedia: Dictionary: Definition of “Money Manager” http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/moneymanager.asp
(19) FINRA: Investors: Smart Investing: Selecting Investment Professionals
(20) International Coach Federation: Coaching FAQs:
Image Sources:
Cover Photo
Investoradio: Really Get Growing
Figure 1
Money Tactic: Foundation of a Balanced Financial Portfolio
Source Link:http://moneytactic.com/2011/04/foundation-balanced-financial-portfolio/ Direct Link:
Figure 2
Ridings Insurance and Financial Services, LTD.: Clients: New York Life: Financial Needs Pyramid
Source Link: http://www.georgeridings.com/Clients.22.htm Direct Link: http://www.georgeridings.com/files/4984/pyramid2.png
