How to Coach Yourself and Others Techniques For Coaching | Page 74

3.7 REALITY CHECK
When people come for personal life coaching, they usually feel stuck.
They desperately want to change something, but they report they don’t
know how to make their lives different. As they discuss the scenario, I
typically note a common denominator that keeps them stuck in their
unpleasant situation.
Most people who want to change are caught up in a state of “denial”. As
you read this, you might be saying to yourself that you don’t fall into
that state because you clearly know what is wrong in your life and what
you want to change. I assure you, denial is almost always part of the
problem.
The classic example of denial is the coachee who lives with an alcoholic
and does not see the behavior as being as serious as it is. She might say,
“He wasn’t as drunk as last weekend” or “Well, at least he didn’t drive”
or “He couldn’t have been that intoxicated because he was able to go to
work”.
When a coachee comes in and wants to start a new business they
typically have not researched the amount of hours they will need to
devote to changing their life so dramatically. They have not created the
financial support to sustain them during this transition. They are in
denial about the realities of this change. They want the outcome, but
they haven’t created the infrastructure to support the change.
My work with coachees who are stuck usually involves moving them
out of the state of denial by doing what I call a “reality check”. This is
done in two steps. The first step is after the coachee makes a statement,
I hit them with a dose of reality.
COACHEE: I want to lose ten pounds.
ME: What have you done to support the change?
COACHEE: I am doing a lot of thinking about it.

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