100 Powerful Coaching Questions for your Toolkit

Coaching Questions to…..

Help someone clarify their overall coaching goals.

1. What has brought you to coaching?
2. What would you like to achieve in this coaching?
3. How would you like to be different by the end of our time together?
4. What is it about your current situation that you can’t resolve on your own?
5. What is the background to your situation?
6. What progress have you already made?
7. If you could wave a magic wand, what would you like to happen?
8. Why is this goal important to you?
9. What does success look like for you?
10. What is holding you back from achieving your goal?
11. If you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you do?
12. What would you do if you were not afraid?

Help someone clarify their session goal

1. What specifically would you like from this session?
2. What makes this important for you today?
3. Where would you like to be with this by the end of our session?
4. How might solving this help you and others around you?
5. What would you like from me in this session?
6. How will we both know you have achieved your session goal?

When someone is seeking clarity on their vision and purpose?

1. What do you want your life to look like in 5 years?
2. What legacy do you want to leave behind?
3. What would your self in 5 years time like to be saying you have achieved?
4. What values do you want to live by?
5. How do your current actions align with your long-term vision?
6. What steps can you take today to create the future you desire?

When someone is stuck

1. What might be keeping you stuck?
2. What is it about your current situation that is serving you?
3. What about changing this situation are you afraid of?
4. If you could do just one thing, what could you do?
5. “What are you assuming that is stopping you from moving forward?” (Nancy Kline)
6. “What would be different if this problem were solved?” (David Rock) 

When someone is looking for a solution

1. What are all the possible solutions? What else? What else? (Keep asking what else for more solutions to come out) 
2. What are your best hopes for this situation?
3. What do you already know that you are not accepting?
4. If you could wave a magic wand, what solution would emerge?
5. If you imagine this situation being solved, what do you see? In the context of this what solutions do you see?
6. “What more do you think, feel or want to say?” (Nancy Kline)

When someone is exploring their values

1. What makes you feel alive and fulfilled?
2. When you are at your best, what are two values that might be being expressed?
3. What are 3 words that would describe how you approach life?
4. When you are triggered by a situation or person, what value might possibly be compromised for you?
5. When you are faced with a difficult decision, what values would you use to help you decide?
6. How would your best friend or partner describe your values?

To help someone access their own inner wisdom

1. What is your gut/heart telling you now?
2. As you quiet yourself, what does your wise self suggest?
3. When you tune into your body, what thoughts and feelings emerge?
4. If you were to give yourself advice, from your own deep wisdom, what would you suggest?
5. What do you know deep down that feels hard to accept?
6. When you have dealt with a similar situation in the past what did you do?
7. If you were being fully true to yourself, what actions would you take?
8. What do you know about yourself that could help you here?
9. What do you know about yourself that might hinder you here?
10. What would your future self suggest that you do now?

To help someone connect with their feelings and emotions

1. What do your emotions tell you about this situation?
2. How would your best friend describe your emotions?
3. What words could describe your emotions?
4. If your feelings could speak, what would it say?
5. What does happiness feel like to you?
6. What does sadness feel like to you?
7. What other feelings can you describe?
8. How do you feel when you are at your best?
9. How do you feel when you are at your worst?
10. What does it feel like to talk about your feelings?

To help someone explore and understand a situation they are in

1. What story are you telling yourself about this situation?
2. What story might others be telling themselves about your situation?
3. What is another way to look at this situation?
4. What is the best case/worst case scenario in this situation?
5. What would you say to a friend or colleague in a similar situation?
6. What metaphor would best describe this situation?
7. What are the opportunities/challenges in this situation?
8. “What is really going on here?” (Edgar Schein, Humble Inquiry)
9. What are you not seeing?

To help people make a choice

1. “What’s the one thing that, if you accomplished it, would make everything else easier or unnecessary?” (Gary Keller) 
2. “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” (Sheryl Sandberg)
3. What’s one thing you could do that would make the biggest difference?
4. What choice will have the best impact on your future self?
5. What would be possible if you let go of your limiting beliefs?
6. Lean into each choice – what does it feel like in each one?
7. If you had to make this choice or decision urgently, which would you choose?

To help people move towards action

1. What is the smallest action you can take, that you know you can commit to?
2. When can you commit to taking this action?
3. What can you put in place to remind yourself of this action or change?
4. How can you hold yourself accountable to act?
5. How can others help you to remain accountable to yourself?
6. How will you track success and movement towards your goal?
7. What can you do if you face a setback?
8. What resources do you have that will help you succeed?
9. How can you reward yourself?
10. What will it feel like to know that you have made progress?

When the person is influencing stakeholders

1. Who are the key players in this situation?
2. Who has a vested interest in the situation?
3. How are they connected to each other and to the situation?
4. What are the outcomes they will want?
5. If they could wave a magic wand, what might they want?
6. When you stand in their shoes, how might they see this situation?

When organisational culture is affecting your client?

1. How might the organisational culture be impacting your situation?
2. Who holds the formal and informal power in this situation?
3. What metaphor would describe your culture? How can you work with this?
4. What might be the organisational politics being played out here?
5. What would you like to see differently in the culture?
6. How can you influence this change within this culture?