Power of Acknowledgement in Coaching

I associate acknowledgement with acceptance. And acceptance can be from any body and in any form. Every heartfelt “AHAA”, “HMMM”, “WOW”, “That’s Great”, “Good Work”, “Well Done”, “I Like It”, happy eye raising expression, silence, a warm smile, or a hug brings acceptance and connection with client or anybody that you are dealing with, in fact this works in personal lives as well and when acceptance takes place the acknowledgement is somewhere evolving in the other person’s heart. Let’s do little bit of reflection to explore this more.

• Which is one acknowledgement that you still remember?

• What kind of feelings does it generate within you?

• What did you feel about that person who acknowledged you, may be even if many years back?

• What makes that acknowledgement so special that you still remember it?

You can reflect through the above questions that there are only very few acknowledgments that stay fresh in your mind and that’s because it has created some kind of acceptance of your effort/skill/presentation or even a gesture. The acknowledgement was the result of the happy emotions generated as part of the acceptance which has helped retain that acknowledgement in your mind/heart. You were so touched by those acknowledgements that irrespective of how old you grow; you would remember that forever as if they were as fresh as yesterday.

And now let’s turn the table and wear the hat of the coach and reflect:

• How many times have you gifted something to your clients based on what could help? Maybe a book, a CD, flowers or anything that can help the client in his situation.…

• How many times have you made an extra effort to offer resources to help the clients move faster?

• How many times did you think about the client even after your coaching sessions?

• Do  your clients stays with you in your mind even after your sessions?

• Do you start feeling the pain of your clients when they cry in front of you?

• Do you start feeling numb when a client tells you about a major tragedy of their life?

If your answers towards these questions are “Yes”, then I believe that you might have accepted your clients with full heart; which is a great step towards your journey as a coach.

Many a times, I have observed that the coaches stay so much in boundaries of their own that they are excellent at all the competencies of being a coach; however, they miss the emotional connection which can bring acceptance to the client. If you are in coaching profession just to earn money, think about it again! Coaching is about service and service can’t be done if you have only money on your mind. Coaches needs to know how to connect emotionally and bring acceptance to every perspective of the client in order to start making the client feel connected. The barrier of forming a perception,  or a barrier of agreement/disagreement just doesn’t exist in this scenario. The client is open, happy, looking forward to the coaching session, growing in perspective, and energetic throughout the journey or at least resilient.