Listening Skills and Strategies

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Successful Listening
Listening Strategies
In order to effectively listen, the coach must be able to devote their full attention to the client. To do this, the coach should go through the process of emptying their minds before each session (Dunbar, 2010). By ridding their minds of all their personal thoughts, they open more room to listen to the client and fully comprehend everything being expressed. Moreover, a creative way of emptying the mind is by visualizing the thoughts leaving and going somewhere to be stored until the session or working day is over (Dunbar, 2010). By visualizing the thoughts leaving, it helps the coach actually empty their thoughts and be able to pay complete attention to the client, promoting effective listening in the session (Dunbar, 2010). Ultimately, pay attention to the client will help the client-coaching relationship build, boost the client’s ability to share their feelings, and promote a more productive and beneficial session experience.
Listening is not just about body language or verbal messages it is about the client’s spiritual communication. Coaches should be sensitive to client’s spiritual needs as well, remembering to always consider how this information affects their spiritual health (Nelson-Jones, 2006). The coach may encounter individuals of different religious beliefs ranging across the spectrum; the importance of being sensitive spiritually is being able to listen to things that may otherwise be missed when focusing on the verbal and physical cues of a client. For Christian clients, using responses pertaining to the will of God and how it effects their future decisions and goals is a great way to begin the spiritual listening process (Nelson-Jones, 2006). For a coach to be able to effectively listen to the spiritual needs of a client, they must first be in tune with themselves spiritually (Nelson-Jones, 2006). Moreover, ways of becoming spiritually in tune consist of meditation before sessions, praying, reading the bible, and focusing on having a positive atmosphere (Nelson-Jones, 2006).
After the coach has applied many of the techniques explained, they should be able to build rapport with their clients. Rapport is a close relationship between the clients and coaches were they interact harmoniously and are able to understand each other’s thoughts and feelings (Arloski, 2009). Having good rapport with the client helps strengthen the client-coach relationship and in turn creates a better foundation for progress (Arloski, 2009). To build this rapport a coach has to be effective at listening actively, intrinsically, and spiritually (Arloski, 2009).

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