Some coaches make themselves available to clients between sessions and some do not. Your coaching practice system on this is yours to create!
My clients can email me between calls and get a short, spot call of 15 minutes if something important comes up between sessions. But I want to get an agreement ahead of time that this isn’t for every little thing, but rather for something that feels too important to save for the next session.
Most of my clients respect this but when I do get a client who is overdoing it, I’ll call a time-out and realign with them.
In the long run, clients are better served when they learn to bring their challenges to the scheduled full session because we’ll have time to really explore how they might create solutions for those challenges for themselves, rather than just attempting little quick fixes along the way via email.
I always want my clients to appreciate that we are working on what’s behind the problems, what’s creating the problems, instead of just addressing the problem itself.
And to do that well, we have to have a full session available to us. And ALL OF THIS is just my preferred way of working, not what everyone should do.
I have also found that if I’m TOO available (like the always-available emotional support animal), the sessions themselves are not as powerful or transformative. A client might be afraid to bring up what’s really bothering her in a call, and if she knows she can email about it tomorrow, the sessions themselves lose their potential to be transformative.
My goal is to coach in a deeply transformative way so that the “every little thing” or “every little feeling” is not showing up in my client’s life as a crisis that requires instant support.
And I HAVE removed email and spot-coaching availability mid-partnership if I thought it would serve the client and our relationship to do so. I want to be a coach who honors the session itself as the path to real change in how my client sees life and lives life.
Here’s what I don’t want to end up being: “Federal regulations allow a legitimate emotional support animal, whether it be a dog, a cat, a pot-bellied pig (or even a miniature horse in one case), to travel on airplanes in the cabin with the owner, outside of a carrier, and for free if the owner has proper documentation . . .”
~Steve Chandler
