To read part 1 of ‘Using NLP Meta Programmes to Motivate Your Coaching Clients’ click here.
The Meta Programme covered in this article is Reactive – Proactive.
Imagine each Meta Programmes as a scale, with the most extreme example at each end of the scale. Some people will be extremely ‘proactive’, others extremely ‘reactive’, but many will be somewhere along the scale and some may be totally neutral in the centre.
When you are coaching you identify your clients Meta Programmes by listening for the language they are using to motivate themselves to achieve their goals and objectives. By matching their language you will help them motivate themselves.
Highly proactive people tend to move first and think later! They don’t need a lot of information to get started on a project. They are pre-empting things that have not yet happened yet. They will take action before a situation becomes a possible confrontation or crisis and are superb at pre-empting problems.
When coaching your proactive clients if you are asking them to do a lot of research, planning and preparation you will lose their interest because that is not what gets them moving.
Encouraging your proactive clients to do it and see what happens is motivating for them because they are not frightened of making mistakes as this is how they learn.
By asking your proactive clients to “just go for it” or “go do it” you are creating a sense of movement and urgency for them. They don’t want to wait they want to just get out there and do what they have to do.
As a coach, one thing to look out for with your proactive clients is that they can charge off to do things without paying attention to their objective. Make sure that with all their energy they are going in the right direction!!
At the other end of the scale you have your reactive clients. These are the people that are incapable of getting motivated until they have all the information they need. They have to do their research, gather opinions, make sure they have everything they need before the can get started.
Your reactive clients can often procrastinate and not achieve their objectives because they are too busy gathering all the information they need to get started. Your job as their coach is to help them find the balance of just how much information they need to get started and encourage them to move toward their goal and objectives.
Asking these clients to “just go for it” could stress them out, as they have no way of “just going for it” until they are properly prepared and have planned how they will do something. A reactive client usually requires some sort of historical reference before they can become motivated. Once they have everything they need they can become highly motivated to achieve their goals.
So to sum up, the skill of a good coach is to recognise the different ways that your clients motivate themselves and speak to them in the different styles that work for them.
