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Author Topic: How to lose fear of your first coaching session?  (Read 1597 times)
aniinl
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« on: December 21, 2006, 04:42:43 PM »

I'm two months into my studies now and it's all great and fantastic, but it's all theory.
I need practice in order to learn and I knew I wouldn't have any problems finding "guinea pigs" for that because all my friends went, "Me, me, me" when I told them I would need people to practice with eventually.

But, I just can't do it! I'm scared that I will be stuck and won't know what questions to ask, suddenly. It's like an oral exam to me. They always caused me nervous breakdowns... So how will I ever get started, if I can't even coach my friends? Embarrassed

What thought then, was to just "secretly" coach them. Just in a normal conversation, throw in a couple of "coaching" questions. Doesn't work. I get scared that it will feel like an interrogation to them instead of a casual conversation.

Then I thought I'd have a chance at work. Luckily I'm someone people come to when they need advise with frustrating work situations, so there's plenty for me to practice with. But everytime I come home and reflect back, I slap my forehead, realizing which important questions I forgot to ask, because I just wasn't in coaching mode. Also I notice I wasn't coaching them at all, but mentoring. I told them what to do. And it's what I should do - not as a coach - but in that situation. They come to me to solve their problems, so obviously I can't practice my coaching there either...

I'm thinking now of doing some free email coaching. I think that would work for me best. I would have time to think about the issues, think of appropriate questions, models, etc. Once I've done that and gained more confidence, I might be ready to "face" clients.... Also, is it a good idea to coach friends? People that you know so much about?

How did you guys start? Did you have trainings/studies with a lot of practical assignment? Has it happened that a client noticed that you were insecure or got stuck? Are there any tricks to "cover" being stuck?  Huh

Thank you!
Anja
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nick kemp
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« Reply #1 on: December 21, 2006, 04:49:59 PM »

I first trained in NLP in the late 1990s and didn't charge anything for the first two years, but instead used every opportunity to practice and practice and practice some more! There really is no substitute for experience and these days I see 30 - 40 private clients each month which is quite demanding as I also do corporate work and run an NLP training company.

Also seek out the opportunity to attend and assist and participate in as many NLP practice groups as possible as well as taking in as many different styles of training and approaches as possible rather then one single training style.

Above all have fun and remember that in any communication exchange the most powerful state wins the day and ALWAYS go first by getting in STATE yourself first!

Be Well

Nick Kemp
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Jay Budzynski
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« Reply #2 on: December 21, 2006, 06:06:59 PM »

Ha, ha the fear, Oh my! You can hear it in the background, the theme music to Jaws, GGGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRR

 OK lets play the game, the game of mmmmmmmm that feels good. As you have been studding, there grasshopper, you will have a set of questions, now primarily, will be the meta-model, how, what, when, where, how, and with whom, specifically and some times why, yet not very often as why questions, are based on history generation, and are good, at finding pathways into getting around, stuckness.

Ok so you have that fear thing going on, which is cool, yet if you didn’t have fear, what would be a much better emotion to have? As being in control of your state in dependent of where you place your attention, so has you can choose anything resourceful state, in your mind-body, right now, if you was to take those empowering emotions into your future, they in part, you are building in the resources that you will want and need, in those times.

I am going to tell you a little story from my personal life, which isn’t really related to coaching, yet If I can get past, my blocks then any one else can do some incredible and worth while life changes too.

It’s also the story of how I got in to NLP, when I was in school; I had a real tough time, being bullied, as away of life, and not being able to read or write was a issue, in fact school was so tough, that I only attended in total, for about 6 and a half years, and the last three, was because I was taken in to care by the educational authority, for none attendance of school, so from the age of 13-16 I was escorted to and from school, yet I was so far behind that I had no way of getting any where near, being able to read or write.

So I left school, and well my confidence was and self esteem was zero, I hated the world, and everything in it, and at that time the world hated me. My ability to feel emotions was happy, sad, was well static, I was just emotionally switched off, and pain emotional or otherwise, was I just didn’t get it, and I had to pretend, when something was happing that I felt things.  “That was because I spent most of my time growing up in detached states of consciousness” which in common in Dyslexia and ADD/ADHD, so a number of year after leaving school, and not being able to get work, I stated to get really depressed, and got into all kinds of self harm stuff, which started to scare me, and at one point I nearly killed someone, it was at that time, which was in 1993, when, Paul McKenna was doing his hypnotic world of Paul McKenna TV show,  this court my attention, and I was captivated, and even thought I had real trouble with reading at that time, I started to look at hypnosis, and psychology to see if I could help myself, with in a very short time, 7-9 week after looking in local charity shops, for books, I came across Tony Robbins Book Unlimited Power, which was my very first NLP introduction, from that book, I managed to learn to read, and from learning how to read, have spent the last 13 years playing with NLP-hypnosis, general and applied psychology, and ways of making learning easy.

I did my very first NLP training with the then McKenna-Breen in 1999, had a fantastic week in London, and loved Richard Bandler,  after seeing, and hear, so many NLP people in the years running up to that training, I made a choice, that I would learn NLP from every angel I could, and not get boxed into one school of thought or another, a year after my first training, I started getting board with some aspects of NLP, in that it had become stuck, in its pattern creations, every most every NLP in the last 10 years is just a regurgitation, of already used processes, so  I started to mix things together, classical NLP, energy psychology, metaphor, aspects of AL. Accelerated learning, and having mastered trance, am able to map that in to the way in which I use language, so by design, create a hypnotic induction, as  write and  or talk, and well people just seem to change, and not know why, yet that one of them questions that we only ask from time to time.

So feel what you are feeling, allow it be ok, ask your self what would be a better way to feel step into that, and go from there, as for your coaching sessions, just treat it like a conversation, apart you will being adding a number of questions, to get the person you are working with to find, there own answers, and then you might always use the my friend John, My friend John, had just the same issue, and he went about dealing with it like this, this and this, yet you might be surprised, at just how easy you find coaching, I mean you learn to tie your shoes, to talk, so I am sure you can time things just right and ask, the right questions, in a way that make you feel strong in your own abilities.


Failure is never an option, point your mind where it you want it to go, and it will go.

Jay
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Jen Waller
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« Reply #3 on: December 21, 2006, 06:35:32 PM »

Hi Anga,

I don't know about you but I have had several experiences where when I have actually done an activity its turned out to be nothing like what I imagined it to be like. I was just wondering what it would be like for you if this was one of those occasions?

I see that you are Netherlands, are you aware of any coaching circles near you at all? Some people find that practising in a that environment with the opportunity of feedback really helps them. Alternatively I don't know if who you are training with - some coaching schools will be able to put you in touch with other students who are looking to practice.

I'm not sure what getting stuck means for you in this context, do you mean not knowing what to ask next? If so one of the tips I was given was to ask what's the one question that if I asked you now would make the biggest difference? Then you have your next question Grin

I assisted on an introductory coaching day last weekend where the delegates all coached each other, many thought it was their first experience of coaching someone. Talking to them after they had completed the session many reported it was a lot easier than they had imagined. Yes they knew that there were areas they'd like to develop and make even stronger but there were concepts in there that they were doing naturally and never really knew it was used in coaching.

Hope this helps

Jen
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aniinl
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« Reply #4 on: January 02, 2007, 04:13:01 PM »

Nick, Jay, Jen,

thank you all for the helpful tips!

Anja
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