One up and coming skill for life coaches and those interested in personal development is known as Reflective Practice or Reflective Listening. In this article, we will examine the nature of the practice and how its development can help you to better help your clients.

What is Reflective Practice?

Similar to most psychoanalytic practices, reflection centers on reframing the client’s thoughts and using effective probing questions to help them make progress where they are blocked.

Reflective Practice is not therapy, however; it’s a tool anyone can use. If you’re in need of a therapist, find one, then use Reflective Practice as an adjunct.

A desired outcome of the process is for the client to gain a stronger sense of self-direction and a greater ability to redirect non-productive behaviors to those that will serve them more effectively.

The reflective process can come naturally for many coaches and is often a behavior that draws coaches into the business of mentorship. While it can be an innate characteristic that serves coaches well, it is a skill that can be further developed.

Reflective Practice is effective as a skill that the client can develop outside of sessions in order to experience an even greater level of success. When the coach utilizes Reflective Practice in an effective manner, the client learns to rely more on themselves than an outside force for the answers that they seek. This, in turn, increases their feelings of self-reliance and self-confidence.

In a way, Reflective Practice can be a bit of a behavior loop that prompts one positive outcome after another. Successful coaches realize that they can best help their clients when they allow them to find the answers that they seek through personal reflection rather than simply telling them what they need to hear.

Personal Growth Through Personal Reflection

When you utilize Reflective Practice, you are digging deeper to find the well of resourcefulness that resides within. It is much better to guide people to discover the answers that they seek rather than to give them those answers. When the client knows that they are able to help themselves with some guidance from their coach, they are more likely to be more involved and active in their treatment.

Reflective Practice is teaching someone to fish rather than giving a fish. It allows you to heal or help your clients heal themselves. When you reframe and question and probe, and allow the client to achieve their answers through a period of self-discovery, the results are likely to be more long-lasting and impactful.

This practice is a learned technique and one that should be revisited on a regular basis in order to ensure that your skills remain sharp. When working with high performing clients that grow easily frustrated with themselves, it may be difficult for them to achieve the patience that they need to ensure a successful practice.

Explaining the process in such instances can help the client to better understand how they are being helped, and will also help them feel as though they aren’t spinning their wheels.

Reflective Practice is an effective tool but one that does require patience on the part of the client. It will also be necessary for them to trust themselves and their ability to recognize and resolve their problems.

However, coaches cannot be fooled into thinking that this is a passive practice. It is not. The coach must maintain a very active role in order for the process to be successful.

Communication between the client and the coach is also of utmost importance, as the client must buy into the process and believe that the reframing and questioning that the coach provides can yield the desired outcomes.

As a coach, Reflective Practice is one important skill that can allow you to help your clients in such as way that they will enjoy a heightened sense of purpose and fulfillment.