Coach the person

Written by Jim Chaput
After a 19-year career in financial services, Jim left a leadership position to focus on health and fitness. Jim is a Master Practitioner of Applied Movement Neurology and holds Certificates in Applied Functional Science and 3DMAPS from the Gray Institute. His passion is empowering people to help resolve the pain, tension and insomnia that prevents them from living well.

I once thought someone was un-coachable if they repeatedly made the same mistakes and didn’t respond to my feedback. I always wondered, “Why keep doing the same thing when it almost never works?” I realize now that I was the problem. I didn’t give the right feedback, I needed to deliver it differently or they did not see me as their coach.

The mistake I made was coaching the behavior instead of the person. The value of coaching is in the improvement to which it leads. For lasting improvement, empower the person to make different choices or help them decide they will do things differently.

Which will last longer?

  • My coach says I can’t eat bread.
  • I don’t eat bread, whole food is so much better for me.

How do you persuade other people (or yourself) to make better choices?

2 Comments

  1. Pat

    Appeal to their senses .
    Maybe their breath will smell better if they eat right or it might
    improve their eyesight or lead to the good feeling that comes with fitting into jeans …Catch a person feeling good and explain that “ This feeling can continue by eating the right foods!”

    • Jim Chaput

      Thanks, I love those ideas!