Coaching with NLP For Dummies®

Experiment with New Ideas

Be brave and experiment with different approaches to your coaching so that you and your clients avoid getting stuck in predictable routines. For example, put on your NLP hat and consider how you can engage sight, sound, taste, touch, movement and smell.

Try any – or all – of the following suggestions to vary your coaching:

• Change the venue. Walk and coach by the river, in a park, in a coffee shop, or on comfy chairs in a concert hall reception. Trying different spaces can prove valuable, particularly if you're coaching in the corporate world and your clients are office-based. Putting them in a different environment also puts them in a different frame of mind.
• Work with photos and favourite objects. Invite your client to bring a favourite photograph or important object and share a story about it. Choose some questions to deepen the significance of the chosen image or object. How does it relate to the client's current situation? What does this say about who the client is and what's important to her now? What is your client carrying from the past? And be sure to check out Chapter 13 for ideas on letting go of the past.
• Introduce toys and art materials. Instead of talking about a situation, invite your client to draw it or map it out with bendy toy characters or plastic animals as the key stakeholders. Explore why the client chose specific characters or animals ...