 The subtitle of this book really says it all: “Let go of who you think you’re supposed to be and embrace who you are.”
Brene Brown has a Ph.D. She’s a researcher and academic in the realms of emotion, shame and authenticity. And while the author presents 10 guideposts to living what she calls “a wholehearted life”, she illustrates each with personal examples from her own journey. So it’s also a memoir, the author’s very personal story of coming to terms with being herself. And as she struggles with her own lack of worthiness and shame, she turns a personal breakdown into a spiritual awakening.
Those on a spiritual path already know we need to embrace ourselves as we are – that it requires courage, compassion, vulnerability, letting go. What I love is the honesty with which she shares her mistakes and flaws, modelling the courage and vulnerability that she encourages us to embrace. What’s different is that this book is written by a left-brained scientist in a way that left-brained analytical people can more readily identify with.
So, this book is perfect (if you’ll excuse the pun) for those hard-working, left-brained, perfectionist clients who are asking deeper questions about the meaning of their lives and where to go next. And if that’s you, then maybe you’ll enjoy it too.
Want to know more? You can get a great idea of what the book is like from Brene’s TED Talk on Courage and Vulnerability and Brene’s most recent TED talk about Shame.
If you liked this, check out our recommended books here >>
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I am often asked which Coaching Tools and Exercises I like best, use most, would recommend or would not be without – so I thought this would be a useful article to write. Below, I share the tools that I think are most universally useful for coaches and our clients but, as I created them all, if I’m honest I really wouldn’t be without any of them! Please note that this is the second longer than usual article – and again, I have tried to jam-pack it with useful tips for you! Enjoy.
I’d also love to hear from you which tools and exercises you use most – or find most useful – in your practices! Anyhow, here are mine:
- “The Wheel of Life” Coaching Exercise. The ultimate coaching tool, it’s endlessly usable for different applications. Also see our article with 12 different ways you can use the Wheel of Life here.
- “What Makes My Heart Sing?” This coaching exercise draws out experiences where people are very present with themselves. You coach them to see how the experiences they’ve chosen are both easy to create and – usually – free! Great for helping people begin to understand what creates joy and happiness. Great for: life-coaching, spiritual workshops, one-on-one sessions and also for homework as part of values exploration. Ultimately this exercise helps our clients connect with what makes them truly happy and to see how easy it can be to create that.
- The “Big Rocks” Coaching Exercise uses a powerful metaphor of trying to fit rocks, pebbles and sand in a jar and how we tend to fill our lives with sand and pebbles first and leave no room for our “Big Rocks” . The story and concept comes first and then a jar with “Big Rocks” is used as a visual to help them prioritise their activities and cement the learning. You coach them around identifying, learning to prioritise and action the “Big Rocks” first, and then to put their metaphorical pebbles and sand in AFTERwards. Great for: Anyone who struggles with many priorities and tasks – especially moms! Also great for business, executive, career coaches and corporate workshops to help with procrastination, improving productivity and being more focused.
- “The Urgent Important Matrix”. This coaching tool helps people become very AWARE of how they could waste less time – and be more productive. So like “Big Rocks” it’s a great tool for business and corporate use. Great for: This coaching exercise is very versatile and helps absolutely everyone better understand how they currently spend their time – and to identify and eliminate their unique time-wasters. With the amount of television, internet and social media usage these days this tool couldn’t be more relevant!
- “Spheres of Influence”. This coaching tool reminds me of the serenity prayer – to focus on what we have control over and let go of the rest. There are 3 concentric circles representing what we have 1) control, 2) influence and 3) everything else. The client focuses on a current issue and fills out the circles . This coaching exercise helps with identifying where and where NOT to spend their time and energy – and decide which actions to focus on. Great for: Life! OK, so any situation where your client is worrying over things they have no control over. Also, corporate situations where there’s a lot of change in the environment. This concept is a powerful take-home for workshops!
- The “Personal SWOT” Coaching Tool. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It is an age-old business tool that has been adapted for personal use. Who wouldn’t benefit from an inventory and understanding of their talents, skills and so-called ‘weaknesses’? Great for: Fantastic coaching opportunities around the client’s “opportunities” (goals) and “threats” (self-improvement and actions). AND this tool can also be used for confidence boosting – to help the client value themselves and spiritually to help them accept their weaknesses as part of the whole. I love this tool – while it’s great for career, executive and business coaches, it’s also great for life-coaching and self-awareness generally.
- “Energy Zappers” or “Tolerations” Coaching Tool (Free). These are simple, powerful “list” tools that help clients identify literally what’s zapping their energy or what they are tolerating. The coaching is around eliminating these energy sucks and freeing up more energy for their goals and life. Great for: Anyone – because we all have things that are zapping our energy. A fun group exercise in workshops where you’d like your client to free up more energy, this coaching tool is helpful for any type of coach with any type of client!
- “Life-Mapping Tool”. This visual coaching tool gives a helicopter overview of significant events in a client’s life. It specifically asks for events of importance to the CLIENT and not what others would think. And because it asks for what is significant for THEM (not just so-called achievements) it gives clues to values, meaningful goals, limiting beliefs and more! Great for: This is an awesome tool to start a coaching relationship with. It’s more fun and powerful than interviewing a client or getting them to write out events – and the relative “peaks” and troughs give an instant overview for both client and coach to move forwards from together.
- “Detox Relationships”. We ALL have difficult people in our lives – and when it comes to family and work colleagues we may have little choice about it. This coaching exercise helps our clients assess who energises and who drains them. The coaching helps them find more time for people that energise them and less time or different strategies for those who drain them. Great for: Fabulous for individual coaching – whether in a career or broader life situation. Watch out: While it’s excellent for a teleseminar, use with care in a workshop situation if people know each other – who knows how they will appear on someone’s list or whether someone will feel they can be honest with a friend sat right next to them.
So, that’s the tools I think are most universal. But as I mentioned, we’d all love to hear from you which tools and exercises you use most – or find most useful – in your practices. Please add in your favourite tools and exercises by commenting below!
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 Traditional "Wheel of Life" Coaching Tool The “Wheel of Life” is a powerful coaching tool – and can be used in many different ways! In fact it may just be the best and most flexible coaching tool in our coaching toolbox – and that’s why I wrote this longer than usual article chock-full of new ideas of how you can use “The Wheel of Life” in your coaching practices!
As coaches, I think we get so used to seeing “The Wheel of Life” that we switch off. Oh – that old thing – AGAIN! But, while The Wheel of Life is ‘old hat’ to us, it’s still new for most of our clients. So, apart from the common use of this coaching exercise to look at life balance, how else can we use The Wheel of Life to help our clients? Well, here are some suggestions (and we’d love to hear what you do – just comment below):
- The Wheel of Stress (or Wheel of Frustration). Start with a blank wheel and ask your clients to list the top 8 areas that stress them out or frustrate them most. And then ask them to score each area out of 10 as to how much it adds to the stress in their life. Then of course, review the results with them. Tip: Ask, which area frustrates or stresses them out the most? Are there any surprises? How could they lower their scores? What actions could they take?
- The Wheel of Progress. When used on a regular basis The Wheel of Life is excellent to help your clients see how far they’ve come. Use it monthly or quarterly with your clients, as both a check-in to see how they’re doing AND as a way for them to see how they’ve improved and grown. Improved scores demonstrate concrete value from coaching and provide a discussion point to help clients see their learnings and progression. Tip: It’s a bit like looking back over an old journal and seeing how far you’ve come!
- The Wheel of Happiness, Fun or even Excitement! Does your client need help to create more happiness, fun or excitement in their life? Well, ask them to identify 8 areas or things that are fun or make them excited or happy. There are different ways to score this – you could ask them to score how satisfied they are with each area, or how MUCH each area excites them, or how much they WANT to ‘do’ or feel drawn to each area. It depends on the labels you’ve used. Then ask your client for an action or commitment for each segment. Tip: Ask what they notice. How could they bring more of each segment into their lives? Help them find multiple wins – where one action raises their score across a number of areas. Love this? You may also like “What Makes My Heart Sing?”
- Getting a Deeper Understanding. Use the wheel to drill down into each area and help your clients understand their lives and issues more deeply. So, take one of the segments and ask them to write out a further 8 areas that make up that segment for them. Eg. a ‘Finance’ wheel could include saving for a house, budgeting, focusing on buying needs and not wants, saving for a rainy day, paying off debts, getting a pay-rise etc. Tip: This is great homework – to identify areas to bring to the session and work on.
- The Wheel of Compassion. There are few of us who couldn’t do with more self-compassion. Ask for 8 areas where your client could be more kind or compassionate with themselves. Get them to score HOW compassionate they are currently – and to identify an action for the top 3 areas that need kindness or compassion most. Tip: Try this one on yourself. Where do YOU need to be kinder with yourself?
- Set More Meaningful Goals. The Wheel of Life is a great way to help a client who is struggling to identify goals. Low scores point to areas where a goal could be identified to raise their score. And high scores suggest areas where a goal could really BOOST your client and skyrocket them in their lives. When we work on where we’re already doing well – this spins off into other areas in our lives and lifts them too. Tip: This is great for business and career/executive coaches – to ease clients into thinking about their personal lives – which we know will, of course, benefit their careers and businesses in the long run.
- The Wheel of Priorities. Ask your client to label their Top 8 priorities – across work, home, relationships – basically their priorities in life overall. First, ask them to identify their Top 3 priorities. Then ask them to score their satisfaction out of 10 for all the areas. This approach can also be used to look at a specific area of life eg. career, finances or even to prioritise goals! Tip: What do they notice? How does the score for their Top 3 priorities compare to the lower priorities? Do they have their priorities ‘straight’ or do they need to shift their focus? What actions could they take?
- The Wheel of Sales (or Wheel of Marketing). A wheel can also be used to help identify actions rather than identify and score ‘areas’ to work on. So, take a blank wheel and ask your clients to identify sales or marketing actions to complete in the next month (or key actions to complete in the coming year). I recommend having a Sales Wheel AND a Marketing Wheel as although they’re related they are different disciplines. Tip: You could also pre-fill some of the wheel for them so a Marketing Wheel might include social media, networking, advertising, workshops, a newsletter and a Sales Wheel might include clarifying a sales process or funnel, writing a script for complimentary sessions, calling enquiries back, creating an entry level product, reading about Sales. You might like to try this one for your coaching practice…
- The “Skills and Knowledge Gap” Wheel. What are the Top 8 skills and knowledge gaps your client has that gets in the way of that job, promotion or new career? Ask your client to identify their gaps and then to score out of 10 where they are on the road to filling this gap. Finally identify action next steps for each ‘gap’. Tip: It helps to clarify whether each ‘gap’ is a skill or knowledge gap. AND it’s also important to do a ‘sanity’ check that the gap is fillable and that it’s a skill they are able or WANT to fill!
- General Action Planning. The visual wheel format is also great to make action planning more fun. So, using a blank wheel, write the goal or required outcome at the top of the page. Then ask your client to write out the next 8 actions or chunks of work that make up their goal. Tip: If you get them to put a date against each action – they can then use the ‘pieces of pie’ to record the % complete for each area! Using a wheel is also a great way to BREAK DOWN bigger actions into smaller more manageable chunks.
- The Relationships Wheel. This is a wheel ABOUT relationships. Ask your client to list the 8 people that most energise or drain them and then score HOW energised or drained they feel after spending time with them. Then ask what they notice. Tip: Ask them what % of their time they currently spend with each person. For the energising people you could ask how they could spend MORE time with them? And for the drainers you could ask how they could spend less time – or change the way they spend time with them. Love this? You may also like our “Detox Your Relationships” Coaching Tool.
- The “Finding Love” Wheel. Our final suggestion is to help your clients identify what they are looking for in a relationship. Ask your client to take the blank wheel and label the pieces of pie with the 8 essential qualities their ideal partner would have. Then ask them to score how IMPORTANT out of 10 each quality is. This will help them identify which qualities are MOST valuable. Tip: It’s a good idea to set this one as homework and encourage them to think broadly about qualities that are REALLY important in a LIFE partner. And, depending on your client, by giving them a few examples to start with like “good listener”, “kind”, “spiritual” can get them thinking beyond “tall” or “good looking”.
So, obviously you can use as many segments as you like on your wheels, you’re not limited to 8 wheel segments – but it is easy to divide the wheel up this way!
Final Tip: And whatever we’ve used the wheel for I like to ask this question when complete, “So, if this wheel represented your life/relationship/career/marketing strategy, is it a bumpy ride?”
I hope this has given you some new ideas for using “The Wheel of Life” in your coaching practice. Why not give one a try – it’s wheely good!
And remember - we’d LOVE to hear how YOU use The Wheel of Life – just comment on this post below!
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 I don’t know why I haven’t answered this question earlier, but now is as good a time as any! I absolutely love coaching tools and believe that they are an essential supplement to the coaching relationship. Whether used in session, in workshops or as homework they provide extra opportunities to inform our clients and raise their awareness. They help our clients create time for reflection, solidify their learnings and move forwards, faster.
So, what IS a Coaching Tool or Exercise? Well, for me a coaching tool or exercise is ANYTHING we use to raise our client’s awareness or move them forwards. This could be by enhancing their understanding of themselves or by helping them make changes, decisions or take action in their lives.
Coaching tools can raise awareness in many ways; by asking a series of questions, getting our clients to draw things or by offering a reframe or new metaphor. We can also raise awareness by giving our clients useful and relevant information eg. time management tips or a new process or model like to help with conflict or writing a resume. NB. In the case of information transfer there must be a further step which asks, “What does this mean for me?” or “What am I going to do with this new information?”, otherwise for me it’s not a coaching tool, it’s training.
So, a coaching tool facilitates learning and change – it asks powerful questions or gives the client a reframe, a metaphor or some information – and it then solidifies the learning by specifically asking, “What have I learned?” or “Now what?”
For me, coaching tools also need to be enjoyable. After all coaching, when fully embraced, can be hard work! So by making coaching exercises lighthearted and fun, we make the whole coaching process lighter and easier for our clients too. After all, we all know that when we’re having fun we learn more and that the learning stays with us longer.
And while you pick and choose tools according to your client’s needs, they should be reusable with other clients – the best coaching tools and exercises deal with universal issues. Examples could include prioritising our time, setting meaningful goals, exploring what’s important to us, taking better care of our ‘selves’ or getting unstuck and taking action.
So, what does a coaching tool look like? Well, a coaching tool can be as simple as sending a client away from a session with a powerful question, which they can ponder, meditate or journal around. And a coaching tool could also be a several session process with multiple steps with instructions over email – like establishing a client’s values and priorities. The coaching tools I have created are short, simple documents with plenty of colour and graphics to make the forms look fun to complete – they look appealing – but still pack a punch in the self-discovery process.
“The Wheel of Life” (available in our Free Coaching Tools) is probably the best known coaching exercise – and it’s amazingly flexible. Did you know that although it’s mostly used to help people see how balanced their life is, it can be adapted for many other purposes too? More about that here in our article with 12 Awesome Ways to Use the Wheel of Life!
Other great examples of coaching tools include the “Personal SWOT” Coaching Tool (to review our Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats), “The Urgent/Important Matrix” Coaching Exercise to make more effective use of our time or our free gift with newsletter sign-up – “Troll Travels” where clients use the ‘device’ of a troll to decide which of their qualities they value the most (and it’s rarely what they expect!). Check out our Coaching Tools Catalogue for more examples.
But whatever coaching tools and exercises you use in your practice, they are not a substitute for coaching and the coaching relationship. Once the client has completed a tool, they bring the results back to you, their coach, and this is where you add your coaching magic! You ask questions, challenge them, delve deeper – and this helps create more ”Aha!” moments which spur our clients on!
The Purpose of Coaching Tools? To enhance the experience for your client and help YOU help your client get the results they want – with more fun, faster!
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 Rejection is utterly unavoidable in life. So why do people spend so much time and energy trying?
Well, it hurts of course! But it doesn’t need to… In order to minimize the pain of rejection, we can help our clients find a way to avoid taking rejections personally. Here are 10 of my Top Tips to Help:
- There isn’t a “Handling Rejection” strategy that works for everyone in all circumstances. Each circumstance is unique - so help your clients find time for reflection, self-compassion and learning.
- Fearless repetition! Help your clients learn to think like winners! Remember: Winners lose more than losers because winners keep losing UNTIL they win!
- Don’t settle for less. Help your clients keep trying until they find the people who LOVE them – or what they do!
- Rejections often SEEM personal but rarely are. Help your clients MAINTAIN their dignity by believing in and respecting themselves – no matter what they think anyone else thinks about them! Read more about this tip here >> Another Tool to Handle Rejection, Self-Esteem!
- No is just a word - 2 letters. Ask your clients, “Are you going to care in 10 minutes, 10 days, 10 months or 10 years?”
- Remember “Rejection is a myth”. It’s not the rejection itself that hurts, it’s what we think and say to ourselves about that rejection represents that hurts us.
- Reframe the Rejection. Eg. Rejection is simply the price we pay for wanting a better life. For more reframes, check out our sister article here >> Help Clients Handle Rejection Beautifully – 5 Reframes to Really Give Them Something to Think About!
- We must Stop Making Assumptions about WHY we were rejected! Help your clients either to ask for feedback and get the truth OR if they will INSIST on making assumptions, help make them POSITIVE assumptions! Read more about this tip here >> Have Your Clients Got Psychic Skills?
- Remind your clients always to Look for the Learning. A “No” may become a “Yes” under certain conditions – they just need to find out what they are! Read more about this tip here >> Do Your Clients Make This Rejection Mistake?
- Take it Gracefully – and here’s a useful phrase to help, “Thanks for letting me know. Obviously I would have preferred it if you had said yes.”
And I’ll finish with one of my all-time favourite quotes:
“We would worry less about what others think of us if we realized how seldom they do.” Ethel Barrett
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