Coaching methods
Coaching competency 8: Facilitates Client Growth
Most people who have succeeded in some area of life understand the importance of growth and keep investing in their own growth.
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What is personal growth
Definition: Personal growth is a process in which a person, through self-awareness, develops on the way to realising their potential. Growth plays an important role in a person’s maturity, success and happiness.
How personal growth shows in practice
Most people who have succeeded in some area of life understand the importance of growth and keep investing in their own growth. Growth never stops. It continues throughout life, although at different stages of life it may be focused on different areas.
Growth can happen through formal learning followed by applying the knowledge in practice, or the other way round: by gaining experience and skills first and then becoming aware of how to use them more effectively or pass them on to others. It is never too late for growth and change. Sometimes, though, when the direction is completely new, you need to prepare more and “pull yourself together” to take the first step in the new direction.
What support a coach can give you in your personal growth
Support and encouragement to take the first step
To change something in yourself or in your environment, you first need to become aware of something new, to imagine yourself in a new form or a new situation, or to act differently from the way you are used to. This is a very important moment, a very creative moment, in which the client creates a new vision of themselves or of their life. Sometimes it can be challenging, because we are stuck in the daily routine, under stress, or feel too drained to see a way out and new possibilities. That is why it is important to find room to breathe: a space where you can relax both emotionally and mentally and, by taking a step aside, see the situation neutrally, with a calm heart and mind. In purely practical terms, a coaching session helps you to plan time for yourself into your day. The session creates the space that is needed. In it the coach helps the client to tune in to what matters most, here and now, and at the same time provides a stable base for becoming aware and gaining insights about the current topic, and for giving free rein to imagination and creativity in order to model the future.
Feeling the new vision and being able to believe in it fully
For this to happen, the client has to understand and find a way to make their vision real, in a realistic way and within a realistic time. What will the result look like? By what signs will I know that it has been reached? What resources and skills will I need to get there? What could the plan be, step by step? What first practical step can I take today to carry out my new plan? Many of us have experience with “New Year’s resolutions”. To avoid ending up in a similar situation, the coach helps the client to keep the focus on the result and on carrying out the long-term plan from session to session, until the client has established a new habit and, through practical results, has gained confidence in their ability to see their vision through.
The long-term effect of change
How will moving towards the goal and reaching it affect me and my life as a whole? What would reaching this goal mean to me? How would I change once the goal had become real? How would it affect my relationships with the people closest to me? What effect would it have on my career and profession? What new opportunities would open up in my life? Seeing not only the result itself but the whole picture in a systemic way (the connections and influences) helps the client to consider further how meaningful the new goal is, and most likely to gain extra energy and motivation for reaching it.
Definition: Personal growth is a process in which a person, through self-awareness, develops on the way to realising their potential. Growth plays an important role in a person’s maturity, success and happiness.
How personal growth shows in practice
Most people who have succeeded in some area of life understand the importance of growth and keep investing in their own growth. Growth never stops. It continues throughout life, although at different stages of life it may be focused on different areas.
Growth can happen through formal learning followed by applying the knowledge in practice, or the other way round: by gaining experience and skills first and then becoming aware of how to use them more effectively or pass them on to others. It is never too late for growth and change. Sometimes, though, when the direction is completely new, you need to prepare more and “pull yourself together” to take the first step in the new direction.
What support a coach can give you in your personal growth
Support and encouragement to take the first step
To change something in yourself or in your environment, you first need to become aware of something new, to imagine yourself in a new form or a new situation, or to act differently from the way you are used to. This is a very important moment, a very creative moment, in which the client creates a new vision of themselves or of their life. Sometimes it can be challenging, because we are stuck in the daily routine, under stress, or feel too drained to see a way out and new possibilities. That is why it is important to find room to breathe: a space where you can relax both emotionally and mentally and, by taking a step aside, see the situation neutrally, with a calm heart and mind. In purely practical terms, a coaching session helps you to plan time for yourself into your day. The session creates the space that is needed. In it the coach helps the client to tune in to what matters most, here and now, and at the same time provides a stable base for becoming aware and gaining insights about the current topic, and for giving free rein to imagination and creativity in order to model the future.
Feeling the new vision and being able to believe in it fully
For this to happen, the client has to understand and find a way to make their vision real, in a realistic way and within a realistic time. What will the result look like? By what signs will I know that it has been reached? What resources and skills will I need to get there? What could the plan be, step by step? What first practical step can I take today to carry out my new plan? Many of us have experience with “New Year’s resolutions”. To avoid ending up in a similar situation, the coach helps the client to keep the focus on the result and on carrying out the long-term plan from session to session, until the client has established a new habit and, through practical results, has gained confidence in their ability to see their vision through.
The long-term effect of change
How will moving towards the goal and reaching it affect me and my life as a whole? What would reaching this goal mean to me? How would I change once the goal had become real? How would it affect my relationships with the people closest to me? What effect would it have on my career and profession? What new opportunities would open up in my life? Seeing not only the result itself but the whole picture in a systemic way (the connections and influences) helps the client to consider further how meaningful the new goal is, and most likely to gain extra energy and motivation for reaching it.
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The competency in short
Facilitates Client Growth is the eighth ICF Core Competency. In short, the coach works with the client to turn learning and insight into action, and supports the client’s autonomy in the coaching process.
In practice this means helping the client to integrate new awareness, insight or learning into their view of the world and their behaviour; designing goals, actions and ways of staying accountable together with the client, while respecting the client’s autonomy in all of these; helping the client to look at possible results and to learn from the steps they have taken; inviting the client to consider how to move forward, including resources, support and possible obstacles; summarising learning and insight within and between sessions; celebrating the client’s progress and successes; and closing the session together with the client.
The 2025 review added one point: the coach supports the client in integrating what they have learned and in sustaining progress throughout the coaching.
This article is based on my Latvian article “Kouča kompetence – veicina klienta izaugsmi”, published on 9 November 2021. It was translated into English and its facts were updated in October 2026. In place of the full ICF text quoted in the original, it gives a short summary and a link to the official version.
In practice this means helping the client to integrate new awareness, insight or learning into their view of the world and their behaviour; designing goals, actions and ways of staying accountable together with the client, while respecting the client’s autonomy in all of these; helping the client to look at possible results and to learn from the steps they have taken; inviting the client to consider how to move forward, including resources, support and possible obstacles; summarising learning and insight within and between sessions; celebrating the client’s progress and successes; and closing the session together with the client.
The 2025 review added one point: the coach supports the client in integrating what they have learned and in sustaining progress throughout the coaching.
This article is based on my Latvian article “Kouča kompetence – veicina klienta izaugsmi”, published on 9 November 2021. It was translated into English and its facts were updated in October 2026. In place of the full ICF text quoted in the original, it gives a short summary and a link to the official version.
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