So you’ve successfully attained your life coaching qualifications, or maybe you simply want to begin a new career as a life coach helping others achieve their goals. Either way I have to inform you that you are in for a very rude awakening. The truth is that not many coaches succeed within this industry and it’s not so much marketing that lets them down but rather a lack of a coaching framework for their coaching business.

Within the life coaching industry is expected that a life coach offers all their clients a complimentary session that helps them identify their client’s needs while paving the way forward into the future. This is all well and good because it opens to door to more clients, however what many new life coaches don’t realize is that the complimentary first session can very quickly destroy your morale and your business.

I attained my life coaching qualifications in 2005 from the Life Coaching Institute of Australia. The course was wonderful and I learned a great deal about myself, the coaching business and how to work with clients. However, the moment I stepped into the industry and started coaching clients I quickly realized that I was missing something. I didn’t have a framework for coaching my clients through the first five or more coaching sessions. This for obvious reasons caused a major problem.

I would do all the hard work to find great coaching clients, however after their first complimentary session they never came back. I often wondered what I was doing wrong. Was I not asking the right kinds of questions? Was I not responding to their deepest wants and needs? What was I doing specifically that was scaring these people away?

Over time, what I realized was that it wasn’t so much something I was doing, but rather something I wasn’t doing. My life coaching sessions had no structure or a framework I could build around. As a result I was drawing at straws each life coaching session trying to meet my client’s needs, however because I was so new to coaching I simply didn’t have the ability to adapt to the changing conditions and circumstances that all my client’s faced.

As a result of my frustrations I took a break from life coaching for about 18 months and dabbled in another business, which thankfully didn’t quite work out  However, over this period of time I had a chance to reflect on my coaching business and the mistakes I had made. What I realized was that I needed more structure and maybe even a framework for coaching that would enable me to coach my clients more effectively.

At the time I also began incorporating mind mapping into my work and decided to start piecing together a coaching framework which took several months to develop. At first I found it difficult to piece together, however over time as I coached more clients and picked the brains of other life coaches who had been in the industry for many years, all the pieces started to come together. In the end the time and effort I put into the project started paying off as I began to incorporate this coaching framework into my coaching practice.

Today I use this coaching framework to coach all my clients, and 9 out of 10 purchase additional sessions after receiving their initial complimentary session. This framework like many others is of course not all-encompassing, but what it does is it gives you enough structure and possible pathways where you could take the life coaching session in the future. I literally could not coach without it.

This material is presented within a mind map because of it’s simplicity and easy of use.

Here are the key advantages that result from using a mind map as a reference tool on a particular topic area:

The Life Coaching bundle pieces together some of the best information, strategies, tools and techniques that will help you become a better coach and mentor. The six mind maps (plus bonuses) that are included within this package are designed to help you become a more effective and intuitive life coach. The mind maps can also be used for self-coaching purposes. Keep reading to learn more about each mind map and how it could potentially assist you in reaching your life coaching goals.

#1: 1st Life Coaching Session

This mind map takes you through the first life coaching session with a client. The mind map sets out a definitive plan of action that naturally enables the client to progress through the life coaching cycle with greater clarity and purpose. The mind map explores the following key areas:

• Life Coaching Purpose: Outlines the purpose of life coaching and the benefits it has for the client.
• Life Coaching Roles: Defines clear roles for both the client and the life coach for their life coaching sessions.
• Identify Barriers: Presents barriers to coaching that a life coach must become aware of and minimize throughout their coaching sessions.
• Establishing Rapport: Outlines a four point process that will enable a life coach to establish rapport with their client during their first coaching session.
• Finding Motivation: Breaks down the process that enables a life coach to identify a client’s motivations for coaching and overcoming the obstacles and challenges in their life.

#2: Addressing Client Concerns

This mind map will help you to better address the concerns a client has about themselves, their life and their circumstances in a resourceful, structured and creative way. The mind map explores the following key areas:

• Obtain the Client’s Story: Presents a process a life coach can follow that will help them to obtain a detailed account of the client’s story, problems and concerns.
• Create a Metaphor for the Problem: Introduces a technique a life coach can use to help their client solve their problem through the effective use of metaphors.
• Awaken Client’s Unconscious Resources: Breaks down a powerful life coaching technique that will enable the life coach to empower and awaken unconscious resources within their client to help them overcome the pressing problems.

#3: Current Reality Identification

This mind map will help you to identify a client’s obstacles, their tendencies towards failure, and the GAP between their current reality and desired outcomes. The mind map explores the following key areas:

• Analyze Obstacles: Pieces together a set of critical questions that enable a life coach to break down the obstacles that are impeding their client’s progress.
• Analyze Strategy for Failure: Identifies the client’s psychological strategy for failure and the impact that this has on their life.
• Analysis of the GAP: Analyzes the psychological and behavioral GAP between the client’s past, present and desired future.

#4: Current Reality Evaluation

This mind map will help you through the process of evaluating a client’s present reality, habitual behavior patterns, learning preferences and their success strategy. The mind map explores the following key areas:

• Analysis of Behavior Patterns: Presents several thought provoking questions that help break down a client’s psychological behavior patterns.
• Analysis of Learning Preferences: Helps pave the way for learning from experience by identifying a client’s preferred learning style.
• Learning Optimization: Breaks down some simple yet effective learning optimization techniques and strategies that will assist a client to get the most out of their behaviors, decisions and actions.
• Determining Strategy for Success: Identifies the successful psychological patterns that a client subconsciously and consciously undergoes that helps them achieve their goals and objectives.

#5: Life Coaching Approach Part 1

This mind map will guide you through the process of life coaching by providing a break down of attending strategies, listening and feedback techniques and by outlining the process of effective questioning tactics. The mind map explores the following key areas:

• Attending Strategies: Breaks down the most important factors a life coach must attend to throughout a coaching session. This involves attending to their own body language and psychological tendencies, as well as their client’s language and habitual patterns of behavior.
• Listening & Feedback: Delves into critical listening and feedback techniques that a life coach must progressively learn to adopt into their coaching routine.
• Questioning Techniques: Delves into the power of effective questioning as it relates to life coaching.

#6: Life Coaching Approach Part 2

This mind map will guide you through the process of life coaching by providing a break down of how to identify what a client wants, the barriers to client change, and how to effectively utilize clarifying questions, assumptions and coaching frameworks. The mind map explores the following key areas:

• What Client’s Want: Breaks down the tangible and intangible WANTS that a client desires to have in their life and the obstacles that prevent them from becoming reality.
• Barriers to Client Change: Delves into the reasons why clients resist making changes to their lives, and presents strategies for overcoming these barriers.
• Clarifying Questions: Presents a set of Clarifying Questions that enable the life coach to get a clearer and deeper understanding about their client’s concerns.
• Coaching Framework & Assumptions: Identifies the indispensable life coaching framework and assumptions that a life coach uses to guide them during their coaching sessions.

Click on the images below to view the premium mind maps that are included within this bundle pack. All mind maps are downloadable in a high resolution format ideal for printing.

Below you will find an additional mind map that breaks down typical coaching mistakes that life coaches make while coaching clients. Avoiding these mistakes will help pave the way for more successful and effective coaching sessions. This mind map is available as a free download at the IQ Matrix Blog, however within this bundle it is available in a high resolution format (ideal for printing). Click here to read Life Coaching Mistakes article.

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The Life Coaching bundle package is for you if:

You should not purchase the Life Coaching bundle if you are a seasoned and successful life coach who has no difficulties retaining clients over multiple sessions and months. However, if you’re simply interested in the possibility of incorporating another coaching framework into your business, than this bundle might be exactly what you’re looking for.

Each of these mind maps can be used as an effective reference poster to keep you on track and focused in the right direction. Simply print out the mind map you wish to learn and master and post it on your wall, refrigerator, bathroom mirror, beside your bed, or in your office for easy reference throughout the day. Alternatively you can also place the mind map you want to study on your desktop as a background.

To order the Life Coaching bundle pack simply click on the yellow “order now” button below and you will be given the option to pay via PayPal or Credit Card using PayPal as the payment processor. You therefore don’t need to have a PayPal account in order to make your purchase.