Are one or more of your coaching clients not making as much progress as you would like? Are you frustrated because you can’t get through to them? Are you not making as much money as you want with your coaching practice…?

There is a solution to the above. Change your focus to using Behavior FIT Coaching™. Focus your clients’ new behavior to their behavior style, not your style or some ideal behavior they resist or have trouble doing.

Most coaches see things from their own perspective and their personal style of doing things. They then focus on behaviors client use, help clients modify their behaviors, and then attempt to hold the client accountable for the modified behaviors. What if the client can’t modify to the behavior that you as a coach are recommending? They get frustrated. You get frustrated. Modified behaviors may hold for a short time, but not for very long. Before you know it, you are back to ground zero. No progress and both of you have plenty of frustration and dissatisfaction.

Behavioral FIT Coaching™ is where you master their behavioral style and know specific behaviors that are more easily performed by them.

For example, you have a client who easily does these types of behaviors; 1) they like to interact with others, 2) like competition, 3) like a challenge, 4) believe they can multi-task and 5) want everyone to like them. One of their problems? They over commit, can’t accomplished everything, but don’t like to go back and tell people they can’t do what they committed to do. Their desire to be liked is too strong. What would your advice be to them? Take a moment right now to write it down. We’ll visit possible suggestions below. Would you agree a logical recommendation is this; tell them to bow out of some of their overcommitted activities that are not central to their goals. They agree with you that this is a great idea and commit to modify their behavior. They just can’t do it and let others down. Instead, next session you find out they made things worse and committed to ever more tasks. Does this sound familiar?

Ouch! They agreed to modify their behavior. The modification makes sense. But, they just don’t do it. The recommended behavior is not a fit. You aren’t being a Behavior FIT CoachTM.

There are a lot of models that divide behaviors into four, five, or six general classifications; most DISC assessments (D. I. S. C.), Myers-Briggs (has 16, but it’s really a 4 X 4), the P.I., the Big Five, there are dozens of other different models. Any of these models will help generally, but you need more specific solutions to more closely match the types of behaviors your client can actually do and make into habits. The suggested behaviors need to be more aligned with who they are.

Let’s revisit our example above, but use a more comprehensive and exacting behavioral approach, to understand what motivates their behavior and to look at what they can handle emotionally. After all, all behavior has motives and we all do those things that feel right.

Our client 1) likes to interact with others, 2) likes competition, 3) likes a challenge, 4) believes they can multi-task and 5) wants everyone to like them. Additionally, they are very practical and hate to waste time as well as are impulsive and act before really thinking. The challenge, competitiveness, multi-tasking, desire to be liked, beliefs combined with the

impulsive behavior, gets them into trouble all the time. A more comprehensive Behavior FIT Coaching™ solution for them? Have them count to 10 before taking on any new tasks. While counting to 10 have them a) ask themselves how the new task might interfere with other tasks they committed to do, which will let other people down, and b) come up with a way to recommend someone else who may also be a good fit to do the new task. If they can, help the requester out by recommending others they may approach instead to do the task.

There are many other possible solutions. The key however, is to make the behavior or action that you suggest be in their “tool shed” and be a behavior or action they can and will do. If not, your suggestion or what they agree to do will just lead to frustration.

Behavior FIT Coaching™ will result in better solutions for your current clients, start up that referral engine again, and lead to both you and your clients being less frustrated and more satisfied.