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We talked in an earlier post about why to use a coaching model<\/a>. The 1, 2, 3 Coach model, also described in that post, was really helpful in the beginning. Then, to be honest, I got a bit bored with it. Coaching sessions were starting to all feel the same. And that can be one of the drawbacks of a model or a framework. After a while, even your client knows, “Okay, now they’re going to say, ‘Tell me more.'”<\/p>\n I also discovered that things didn’t always flow in an orderly manner with the people I was coaching. Sometimes the conversation would leapfrog in different directions.<\/p>\n That\u2019s when I turned to another coaching model, Head Heart Hunch.<\/p>\n Head<\/strong><\/p>\n You probably notice that some of your coaching clients do a lot of thinking. They spend the bulk of their time processing things internally. They might know this about themselves and say things like, \u201cI\u2019m overthinking again.\u201d<\/p>\n Heart<\/strong><\/p>\n Other people kind of feel their way to a decision, asking, \u201cWhat feels right?\u201d and \u201cHow do\/will other people feel?\u201d<\/p>\n Hunch<\/strong><\/p>\n And then there are the people who make decisions from the gut level. What’s their hunch about this? What’s their gut or their instinct telling them?<\/p>\n While the first coaching model was all about what the coach<\/em> should do, this model reverses it so as you coach, you\u2019re listening to the client and where they\u2019re<\/em> coming from\u2014head, heart, or hunch.<\/p>\n Another tool of this model is to invite the person to take a different perspective. If they\u2019re in their head, guide them to a heart-centered place (\u201cNow talk to me from your heart\u201d) or towards their gut instinct (\u201cWhat\u2019s your hunch about that?\u201d). Or if they\u2019re focused mainly on how they feel or how others might be feeling, ask them to consider a shift (\u201cOkay, what\u2019s one thing you know to be true about this situation?\u00a0\u201d).<\/p>\n Often these simple questions can break open someone who’s stuck.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not about confronting the person or forcing them outside their comfort zone; it\u2019s an opportunity. I might ask, \u201cMay I share an observation? What I’m hearing is that you’re spending a lot of time in your head thinking. And what I’d like to invite you to do just for a moment is to go to your heart or to your gut, and tell me what they\u2019re saying.\u201d<\/p>\n If someone is most comfortable in their head, going to the heart is uncomfortable; it\u2019s disruptive. And that\u2019s sometimes exactly what somebody needs. But again, we don\u2019t push. We invite, and if they don’t want to go there, that’s fine.<\/p>\n The other beautiful thing about this model is that just as every client has a predominant area, so does every coach. It\u2019s important we remember that not only do we want our clients to be able to move fluidly from head to heart to hunch, we want to do that as well.<\/p>\n