Every day we experience many possible coaching opportunities in our workplaces, homes, and schools. Taking a coach approach in any given situation is an intentional choice to apply active listening and thoughtful question-asking to strategically support someone’s growth and development. In this post, I share tips to recognize, respond to, and maximize a coachable moment.

The start of the year represents a meaningful opportunity to work towards new goals or a freshly inspired plan. If you’re feeling discouraged in the growth journey, or just looking for fresh motivation, find some strategies here to help you persevere.

Points of transition provide us the powerful opportunity to pause and reflect, to consider what’s working and what’s not. Grab some fresh inspiration and tools to help make your reflection times more meaningful and strategic.

How can you inspire long-lasting change?

Thoughtful, well-timed questions offer us an invitation to rich reflection and insightful discussion. Strategic, intentional questions can create new insight and opportunity for growth.

When derailers and distractors threaten my resolve, I have to intentionally remember the importance of creating consistent habits, that this is the stage in which something you do with devotion literally becomes a part of who you are.

What barriers keep you from building sustainable habits?

What if experimentation — to find the right combination of strategies — is an essential part of growth and change in our personal and professional lives? What if one reason we often get derailed is because we are stuck on a strategy that isn’t working?

Which combination of strategies will empower you to successfully achieve your growth goals?

If you are eager for progress, it may seem natural to launch into a specific action plan directly after you have identified your growth gaps and goals. However, realize that there may be multiple strategies that would lead to the fulfillment of your vision.

What new perspective could empower your plan for growth?

I usually know when I need to grow or change in a specific area. The signs are typically clear: I’m continually stressed out, or causing someone else to be stressed out. Or, I am deeply dissatisfied, frustrated, or not seeing progress. For me, recognizing the need for change is the easy part. The harder part is to get really clear about exactly what my specific growth gaps are.

How do you get clarity about the gaps between where you are now and where you want to be?

In your community of friends, family, and colleagues, who inspires you to develop into the best version of yourself?  Who is willing to give you honest feedback, support your growth, and keep you motivated? 

When I think back on the most profound growth I have experienced, I simultaneously recall the community that surrounded me in those critical moments – friends, family, classmates, or colleagues who invested in my development.

I can recall countless visions that I have had for personal or professional growth, yet at some point my follow-through faltered. Consider, for example, the classic New Year’s resolutions that many of us set faithfully every year. Perhaps you start out with a new yoga mat, water bottle and running shoes. But three weeks later you're back to the old routines, tethered to your desk, and hunched over a keyboard, while your yoga mat gets buried in a corner of your office…

What personal change initiative is your current priority? Perhaps you find yourself in the midst of a major change related to a career or life transition. Or, you may have in mind some important growth opportunities related to your everyday habits, relationships, and work.

What’s your process for creating a vision for the growth and change you want to see?

Think of your most recent experience building a new habit. How did it go? What was most difficult about it making a new change successful? Was it the inertia of old routines? The impossibility of imagining something new for yourself? Or the terror of possible failure?