Upon completion of this unit you will be able to:

• Explain why it’s important to work with the client’s subjective, constructed experience, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all coaching approach.
• Explain how the brain creates psychological states and our personal reality, and why this matters for coaching.
• Take a neuroconstructionist approach when working with first-order change (behavior change).
• Describe why a constructionist, neuroscience-informed approach changes what coaching works on.

Upon completion of this unit you will be able to:

• Understand the Ideal Self as a key driver of purposeful change and sustained motivation.
• Explore the contrast between the Ideal Self and the Ought Self, and how each shapes emotional and cognitive states.
• Understand how envisioning a desired future self supports openness to new ideas, future-oriented thinking, and long-term goal orientation.
• Use evidence-based coaching strategies to help clients articulate a clear, emotionally resonant vision of who they want to become.
• Integrate the Ideal Self into coaching sessions, helping clients develop identity-based goals that align who they want to become with their daily actions.

Upon completion of this unit you will be able to:

• Explain the importance of personal vision and purpose in giving direction and meaning to change.
• Understand the role of positive and negative emotional attractors in opening clients up to change or narrowing them into defensiveness.
• Help clients articulate a personal vision that captures what they want their life and work to be about.
• Help clients clarify their core values, and distinguish them from preferences, habits, and inherited expectations.
• Use a neuroscience-informed approach to understand how values guide what clients notice, prioritize, and find rewarding.
• Coach with curiosity to connect a client’s vision and values to the goals and decisions in front of them.
• Help clients recognize when their actions are out of step with their values, and identify small, values-aligned steps forward.

Upon completion of this unit you will be able to:

• Explore how the brain constructs meaning from language and experience, and why this matters in coaching conversations.
• Learn how to identify and unpack the subjective meaning behind the words clients use to avoid assumptions and misinterpretations.
• Practice “slowing down” to surface the deeper cognitive and emotional frames driving client behavior.
• Understand how meaning is actively constructed by each person’s brain, shaped by prior experiences, values, and identity.
• Apply neuroscience-informed strategies to co-create new perspectives and meaning structures that support desired change.

Upon completion of this unit you will be able to:

• Understand the neuroscience of how habits are formed, so you can help clients to start taking charge of the habits that impact their life.
• Identify the specific behaviors and habits that need to change to unlock potential.
• Leverage the brain's valuation system to "tip" into a new behavior and reinforce it for long-term change.
• Know when to use motivation, immediate action, or micro celebration to establish and reinforce new behaviors.
• Examine the neuroscience of motivation: how the brain assigns subjective value and how this shapes goals, decision-making, and behavior.
• Draw from the neuroscience-based habit formation map, so you know exactly what part of the habit process to focus on for rapid and lasting change.

Upon completion of this unit you will be able to:

• Use evidence-based behavior change strategies to help clients define their ideal future and recognize their obstacles to success.
• Identify when to shift from visioning and future-oriented questioning to problem solving and planning (timing this correctly accelerates results).
• Help clients gain insight into the barriers preventing them from changing their behavior.
• Create an action plan so that clients know exactly what to work on, and can start taking action immediately (an invaluable but often overlooked step in behavior change).

Upon completion of this unit you will be able to:

• Help clients work with the brain’s affective and emotional “systems.”
• Describe to clients how the brain makes emotions, so they understand they have more influence over their experience than they think.
• Use affect awareness and values-based action to manage emotional states during goal pursuit.
• Help clients develop an acceptance-based way of being, so they’re less derailed by unhelpful emotions as they meet obstacles and challenges in pursuing their goals.

Upon completion of this unit you will be able to:

• Describe the how, why and when of insight and analytical thinking as thought-modalities for problem solving and decision making.
• Highlight why the biggest issue when faced with a problem or decision is not the problem or decision itself, but the brain's response, and how to address it.
• Utilize a neuroscience-based coaching process to facilitate insight-solutions to problems.

Upon completion of this unit you will be able to:

• Describe the differences between permanent and personal domains of human concern.
• Design the domains of concern that clients will observe and assess their lives with.
• Bring clients' awareness to the unavoidable concerns of life, so they can act to take care of them.
• Develop a life concerns map for each client, to help guide them toward a new way of being.

Upon completion of this unit you will be able to:

• Describe what coaching is and give examples of different coaching approaches.
• Articulate your own coaching philosophy.
• Recognize and understand the ICF Competency Standards.

Upon completion of this unit you will be able to:

• Describe what distinguishes coaching from other support professions.
• Define client-centered coaching and explain the importance of the coaching relationship.
• Explain the link between the ICF performance indicators for Cultivates Trust & Safety and Maintains Presence and unconditional positive regard, genuineness, and empathic understanding.

Upon completion of this unit you will be able to:

• Explain three of the foundation principles of solution-focused coaching.
• See clients as competent, resilient and resourceful, and build on those resources to create change.
• Help clients take action and grow without first needing to explain their problems.
• Help clients focus on positive outcomes, not the eradication of a problem.

Upon completion of this unit you will be able to:

• Define ‘be’ goals and ‘do’ goals and give examples.
• Explain what is meant by ‘goals as incentives’.
• Explain what determines the choice and pursuit of goals that clients set for themselves.
• Give examples of what will assist clients to think about goals from different perspectives.
• Demonstrate how to work with a client to set & pursue goals based on expectations and free fantasies.

Upon completion of this unit you will be able to:

• Apply the 7 Step Coaching Format to the Initial Session.
• Provide examples of solution-focused coaching (SFC) Signature Questions for the Initial Session for each step in the 7 Step Coaching Format.
• Summarize the minimum skill requirements for the ICF Competencies Listens Actively and Evokes Awareness.
• List the SFC signature questions for the Initial Session - goal setting.
• List the SFC signature questions for Second & Subsequent Sessions - committed action.
• Demonstrate how the SFC signature questions for Second & Subsequent Sessions can be utilized in an observed coaching session.
• Apply the SFC signature questions for Ending the Work - recognition of and reflection on achievement.
• Explain the temporal map of coaching model.

Upon completion of this unit you will be able to:

• List SFC signature questions for decision-making and coaching in challenging situations.
• Explain the Choice Point Model (Acceptance and Commitment).
• Apply the Choice Point Model as a SFC approach to procrastination.