Coaching with NLP For Dummies®

What's Important to You about This?

So often people want to do it all or have it all, even though they know that's not possible. Clients may look to their coaches to wave magic wands to save them from making difficult choices.

Classic conflicts of values arise when demands put pressure on you to choose between values such as work and play, health and wealth, family life and work demands. Ultimately, people have to decide which is most important to them, and clients naturally bring dilemmas that represent conflicts of values to talk through with their coaches.

Not many people go through each day talking about their values, and yet values drive your thoughts, decisions and actions. This question brings unspoken values, criteria and beliefs right up front and forces them to be debated. Turn to Chapter 8 for more about the power of values.

When you ask ‘What's important to you about this?’, your clients must consider the values that they live by. At a practical level, this question helps prioritise their requirements and aids decision-making.

An alternative way to ask this question is: ‘What matters to you?’ or ‘What values are you honouring?’

This question is equally valid and useful to ask whenever you're in a quandary: when you're deciding how to grow your business, whether to hire a new employee or make a major purchase such as a new car or computer.