Behaviour



This section is where most of our client interactions will take place. The point of differentiation in our coaching is that we are looking to coach our clients through the process of behaviour change, with the clients overall goal being a by-product of that. By establishing the right practices and skills, we will inevitably help our clients achieve their goal.

It can almost be looked upon as a series of small skills/decisions put together in order to achieve the overarching goal. If your clients respond to prescription, this is a great place as coaches to show what knowledge you have that can help them. As mentioned in the previous section though, co-creating solutions is more effective long term.

 

Preparation Clients

The aims of the our ‘Preparation Clients’ is to:

  • Provide them with information or resources to help them take action with their said change
  • Guide clients in to planning appropriate and achievable goals
  • Brainstorm ideas for them to sustainably implement a behaviour goal
  • Explore barriers or fears of taking up the behaviour
  • Talk about how you can counteract those potential barriers when they arise
  • Temper expectations

Building the confidence of the client is going to be key here. It’s very possible that the client wants to make a behaviour change but has never done it before. Examples include:

  • Have never seen a physiotherapist for an injury before
  • Never done meal preparation
  • Never set foot in a gym

It’s also really common to have clients that understand what they need to do because of previous experience. This doesn’t change what we’re trying to do though, with guiding them back to a healthy behaviour change.

It’s really important that we go through confidence testing with our clients. Please refer to the ‘Confidence Testing’ resource to deepen your understanding of why we do it.

 

Action Clients 

These clients that are either already doing an action or they’ve started out on their set plan. To continually encourage this, we want to get clients to explain their experience with it.

  • Get them to explain how they were successful

  • Explore how it made them feel

  • Did the change have a positive or negative effect on them?

  • How long have they been doing the intervention for? Some things take time!

  • Assess if the behaviour has been effective or not. Does it require progression, regression or a change? 

We want to show great enthusiasm for when people are successful. Creating that feeling you care is important to help that person continually push towards creating a new habit.

Confidence testing and getting the clients contribution is going to be a really good and helpful tool here. By asking the client:

  • From what we’ve spoken about today, what do you think is achievable?
  • How confident are you that you’ll be able to achieve that out of 10?

A level of client input and your knowledge around the area of health you’re working on is going to make them feel a part of the process as well as be heard. This aligns with us wanting to help them co-create solutions for their issues.

Tempering expectations for lapses are also key. No doubt you’ll have a plan set out for people to do and other things get in the way. Try to reframe not meeting their goals as a learning opportunity. It’s very rare we learn a new skill and get it for the first time; it requires practice and patience in many cases. A lot of behaviour change is no different.

 

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