Jim Carrey was the guest of honor at the Césars (the equivalent of the Oscars for French cinema).
During his speech, he chose to speak in French. Naturally, as a French coach, I was captivated by the speech. I was very curious to observe the way he read and pronounced French, which is quite a challenge in this specific context.
Today, I’m imagining what it would have been like if he had come to me for help.
Here are the questions I may have asked him.
❓Why do you want to do the speech in French?
To understand motivation: essential for supporting him in learning.
🏆What would a successful speech that makes you proud look like?
To understand his vision and his level of expectation on different aspects of this speech: perfect pronunciation? an assumed Canadian accent? careful intonation? It’s essential to know what he wants in order to guide him in the direction he desires.
📍Today, compared to your goal, where do you think you are?
Important to connect with his self-assessment and his vision of where he is today/
🗣️Would you be willing to read the text once?
To diagnose current ability.
💪What are your strengths?
Essential to talk about everything that is already working well.
🔧What are the areas for improvement you have identified?
Again, to let him self-assess and see what he is aware of or not.
🎯Which aspect would you like me to help you with?
To understand what he expects from me, to target the work correctly, and clarify intentions.
🛠How would you like to work with me on this aspect?
It’s always interesting to start from the person’s own ideas and see what they are used to doing in this kind of challenge. Maybe there are strategies they already know that work.
Depending on his answers, we would focus on the most important points and start building a plan, including timing: when he needs to be ready and how much time he can invest.
I hope this imaginary goal-setting session gives you an idea of how I start working on a goal with a client. Questioning is essential in Neurolanguage Coaching® because it allows us to start from a blank slate and create a plan that is truly personalized to what is important for the person.
If you have a communication goal in mind, you can take these questions, answer them for yourself, and it will give you interesting insights on the strategy to adopt.
And of course, if you’d like support, you can always book a discovery call to talk about your needs and goals and see if 1-1 coaching could be right for you.
