Using the Powerful Tool of Journaling in Coaching
Lynda Monk (Canada) & Eric Maisel (USA)
Journaling is a powerful tool for transformation that has a place in every coach’s toolkit. We hope that it’ll find its way into yours!
Coaches naturally ask their clients questions and, typically, follow-up questions. A coach might ask her client, “What are your goals for the coaching?”, “What have you tried before that worked well?”, “What might get in the way of you achieving your goals?”, and so on.
Every coach does this, and it takes very little to go the next powerful step: to invite your client to journal to that question. Having clients write in response to a journal question is a powerful tool that coaches can add effortlessly to their coaching toolkit.
As coaches, we know that powerful questions can help guide our clients to transformation, learning and action. And one way of bringing the power of questions into your work with clients is through journaling. Journal writing is a proven and effective tool for greater self-awareness, more clarity and increased access to wisdom from within. These are all things our clients, and we as coaches, seek in one way or another. All we need to do is offer the invitation to journal, with a relevant theme to our coaching focus, and clients will benefit tremendously!
We then need to call forth the learning and new insights that journaling itself brings to our clients directly in the coaching session itself. That is where journal coaching comes in!
WHAT IS JOURNAL COACHING?
Journal coaching focuses on guiding individuals in the use of journaling to increase self-awareness and to take inspired action towards their goals. Journaling is used within the coaching session and between sessions to help clients express their thoughts, feeling, beliefs, and experiences through language and personal story. It can be beneficial in helping clients to deepen their skills in the areas of self-reflection, goal setting, and decision-making. Journal coaching can be done with individuals, as well as within group coaching programs, workshops, and retreats.
WHEN TO USE JOURNAL COACHING?
It can be helpful to engage in journal coaching when a client wants…
- To gain insight for a life decision
- More clarity in some area of their life
- Feelings of confidence in trusting their own inner wisdom
- A sense of direction
- To deeply know, grow and care for themselves through personal writing
HOW TO GUIDE CLIENTS TO JOURNAL
Using powerful journaling questions is a really easy way to get started using journaling with your clients. What follows are a variety of journal questions that you might use with clients.
11 Transformative Journaling Prompts
The following transformative journaling prompts/questions are organised into topic areas based on what they can help your clients to accomplish.
Journaling Questions for Cultivating Feelings of Gratitude
- What do you want that you already have?
- What are 5 things you are incredibly grateful for at this time in your life and why?
Journaling Questions for Making Decisions
- What decision are you trying to make? Why is it important to make this decision?
- What choice aligns most with your core values?
- What is at stake if you don’t make this decision?
- Imagine you have made this decision – how will your life be different?
Source: iCN Issue 48 (Career Coaching); page 10
About the Authors
Lynda Monk & Eric Maisel are both coaches and facilitators with decades of experience serving individual clients and groups alike. They bring their passion for helping others grow and reach their goals into all they do, including co-creating The Art of Journal Coaching Self-Study PLUS training program. They have co-authored and co-edited 4 books together, including Transformational Journaling for Coaches, Therapists and Clients: A Complete Guide to the Benefits of Personal Writing plus numerous Artists Speak journals. You can learn more about The Art of Journal Coaching here >>
