Mindfulness in Coaching: Top 10 Tips

When I first started practicing as a coach five years ago, I already had an established mindfulness practice but it took some time before I felt I could emerge from the closet. Other “secret meditators” shared how they too were reticent about discussing their practice with clients.

Times have changed, and we’re currently witnessing something of a mindfulness revolution. Mindfulness is widely viewed as an approach suitable and adaptable within a wide range of secular settings, including education, healthcare, the workplace, even politics- and more recently, coaching.

There hasn’t been a great deal of research yet on mindfulness in coaching, although plenty in other arenas with implications for coaching. We know, for example, that mindfulness helps us be more emotionally intelligent, more present, more creative, better able to make better decisions, better able to manage stress, and become more resilient.

One coaching study (Spence et al, 2010) found that mindfulness training combined with solution-focused coaching helped clients attain their health goals.

My own research, which included an online survey among 156 coaches from regions including the US and the UK, revealed the top reasons why coaches practice mindfulness: to help them live more in the moment (74%), be more self-aware (73%), manage/prevent stress (67%), and be more present for their clients (65%). And the main reasons they use mindfulness explicitly with clients: to help the clients become more self-aware (70%), be calmer/less anxious (59%), better manage stress/be more centered (55%) and better manage reactions/responses (51%).

So there are plenty of reasons to be “mindful coaches.” What does this involve? Here follow my top tips:

1. Undergo the eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction or Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy program. Research shows just practising mindfulness for eight weeks literally rewires our brains.

2. Practice mindfulness (including meditation) regularly (preferably daily).

3. Take a systemic approach to coaching, “being mindful” of the wider systems in which you and your clients operate.

4. Approach coaching (and life in general) with non-judgment; open-ness; curiosity, and compassion.

5. Prepare mindfully for each coaching session- this can take as little as a few minutes. For example, walk mindfully to your coaching session, or sit in the park and pay attention to your breath for a few minutes.

6. Share mindfulness practices within coaching sessions and as “homework” where useful and appropriate for the client. You don’t have to call them mindfulness- you can call them Centering practices, or talk about exercises that help us become more resourceful and creative, more emotionally intelligent, more able to be resilient and manage stress- the research backs all of this up. You might, for example, suggest both of you do a “breathing practice” when the client first arrives to help you be more resourceful and present.

7. Attend (not solely) to the present in all coaching interactions (thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, happenings- both on your part and on the part of your client). Be curious about everything that arises, turning towards the “difficult” as well as the ‘easy.’

8. Don’t be overly-attached to outcome, for yourself or your clients. It can be incredibly powerful, particularly for leaders, to sit with not-knowing, to be open to whatever emerges in a non-judgmental, curious, compassionate way.

9. Be compassionate to yourself and your clients. Practicing mindfulness helps us develop compassion, which I believe is a central component of coaching. It can be incredibly hard to be self-compassionate, but well worth the effort.

10. Have fun! In the West, we often take things far too seriously and can learn a great deal from Eastern teachings. Yes, mindfulness helps us manage stress, be more creative, improves our cognitive functioning and thus our “performance” but ultimately, for me, mindfulness is about bringing joy back into our lives and those of our clients.