Coaching Tools 101: How to Use the "Renew You, Love Your Life" Program for Group Coaching | by Emma-Louise Elsey

I am often asked how to apply the "Renew You, Love Your Life" Coaching Program to groups ie. group coaching or a workshop-type situation.

The Renew You, Love Your Life Program

In my experience - personally, as a life-coach and from real-world observation - people are much more likely to sign-up for a specific "program" than simply for week-to-week coaching sessions. This makes sense. Programs are usually offered at a fixed cost so potential clients know exactly what their financial outlay is (read here for help with how to price your coaching program).

In addition, coaching programs usually have a limited time period (sometimes also with a set start and end date) which is also good to increase client comfort with signing up and committing. And importantly, programs often solve a specific problem, address a specific goal, or follow a set "protocol" that can be "understood" and rationalised by the client. For example: The program will have THIS set of activities or outcomes, we will do THIS when we work together.

This articles addresses the following Group sizes:

• In this article I am assuming the groups will be "Group Coaching" sized - which according to the ICF (International Coach Federation) means no more than 15 people.
• Jennifer Britton also suggests that virtual groups (ie. over Zoom, Skype or by teleconference/phone) should be smaller - from 4-8 people max.

Before I get into the group part, it's helpful to remind ourselves of how the Renew You program works for individuals with a quick overview.

Each Client is Different! How Does the Renew You Program Work?

The "Renew You, Love Your Life" Coaching Program is intended to make it easier for you to get clients by offering an inspiring, fun and time-limited life-coaching program run over 13 weeks or 3 months. We specifically selected a program topic that can be "spun" many ways for your client base - a "spring clean" of their life, a renewal of connection with themselves, a fresh outlook on life, how to love your life more. These are all solid life-coaching topics!

At a high level, the "Renew You" Program - for individuals - works like this:

1. Your clients set 3 goals to achieve during the 3 months of the Renew You Program that they'll be working with you.
2. They complete 13 exercises as homework - which offer new perspectives on their life and deepen connection with themselves.
3. All the while, you coach them towards the goals they set with you at the beginning and help them unpack the learnings from the homework exercises.
4. Then at the end of the program with you, you review what they've learned, help them see how far they've come - and make your coaching offer to continue working with you...

More Detail on How The Renew You Program Works with Individuals: Brighten Up Your Life Wheel Pre-work: Send the client the "Brighten Up Your Life" form to complete prior to their first session with you. Session 1: Complete your regular intake process (free intake checklist here). Review "Brighten Up Your Life" completed homework form. Give them homework "Coaching Goals Worksheet" to set 3 goals for working with you on this program. Session 2: Coach your client to firm up their goals, check goal ecology and goal clarity (the goals they set as their homework from last session). Coach them to set some actions and get started on their goals. Give them their homework form. At each following coaching session - Repeat for Sessions 3-12: Debrief the form given as homework. Coach them around their goals (the ones they set with you at the beginning of the program). Set some actions towards those goals. Wrap-up by giving them the next homework form. Wrap-up Session Questions Repeat this process according to the program UNTIL... Session 13: Wrap-up Session A quick re-score of "Brighten Up Your Life" to help your clients see how much they have "renewed and refreshed" themselves. Review their "Coaching Goals Worksheet" to note successes and progress. Complete Wrap-up Session Questions to see what they've learned with you. Ask where they want to go next and make your "Would you like to continue coaching with me?" offer!

"I purchased the "Renew You, Love Your Life" coaching program and have just started running my first group through it. I love how it is put together - simple yet informative! Well worth the investment." Teresa Abram, RHC Life Doula & Health Coach, Founder of Purple Door Health

So, What's Different When You Run "Renew You, Love Your Life" as a Group Program?

In Summary:

When running the Renew You, Love Your Life Program in a group it's loosely the same. There are 2 key differences:

1. Goals: You won't be able to coach each group member each week around their goals. When you run the Renew You Program with individuals, client goals forms a large part of each session. In a group you won't have the time to coach everyone weekly. So people's individual goals need to be handled differently when running Renew You for a group.
2. Session Length: Instead of hourly sessions, you will need longer each week to allow for group work and exercises. I recommend 2-3 hours per regular session - allowing a little more time for the last wrap-up session. People who are experts at running groups could possibly run the regular sessions in 90 minutes - but this would be very tight.

Learn more about the: "Renew YOU, Love Your Life" Coaching Program in a Box

IMPORTANT: Decide Whether you will Include Goals in Your Program:

Start by deciding whether you'd like to include the goal-setting piece in your Group Coaching Program or not. Do you:

1) Want your group to work on individual goals as well as the Renew You Tools?
OR
2) Will you just use the Renew You Coaching Exercises as the basis for your group coaching program?

Both options work in the group format. Here are some factors to help you decide:

• Not covering goals each week with your groups will give you more time to review and explore what was learned in the homework. In addition, it is less to cover and therefore easier to manage. Choose to EXCLUDE goals if you are a less experienced group facilitator, or if you'd like to have shorter weekly sessions.
• Including the goals every week will give each person a more individual experience. It will also require more work from the attendees. Choose to INCLUDE goals if you'd like your clients to go deeper with this program, AND you believe your attendees will have the time, energy and motivation to work on goals alongside the weekly homework.

1) If You Decide to INCLUDE Goal-Setting in Your Group:

If you decide you'd like to keep the individual goals part of Renew You, you'll need to decide HOW you support your individual group clients in achieving those.

Here are Specific Changes to Make:

Session 2 - Changes to Manage Goal-Setting:

• In the second session, you would normally coach the individual around making their goals SMART and personal.
• Instead, talk to the group about what makes a good goal, how to set a SMART goal and goal ecology topics. Then do a little coaching to show what you mean:
  • COACHING OPTION 1: Ask people for specific goal examples and then coach 2-3 people on ONE goal to demonstrate. Then allow time for individuals to create and "smarten up" their own goals.
  • COACHING OPTION 2: Laser coach (15 minutes) one or two group members to demonstrate what a great goal looks and feels like.

Session 3-12 - Changes for Taking Action:

As you don't have enough time to coach each person around their goals at every session, allow time instead for the group to work individually on their goals. This could be done for example:

• At each weekly session, start with some individual goals coaching to demonstrate and help people learn from each other. This could be achieved a number of ways:
  • Individually laser-coach (15-20 minutes) one person at each weekly session (this works well at the beginning of the goals time - so everyone else gets ideas).
  • If your group is in person, you could choose one person (just ask for a volunteer!) to coach around their goals and demonstrate the coaching process. Then set some boundaries around advice giving - and put people into pairs to "coach" each other around their goals and next steps.
  • Allocate a set amount of time, and coach 2-3 people around an issue they might be having with ONE of their goals.
• Then, give the group time to work individually on their goals - review and next step/action planning. Allow approximately 10-15 minutes.

3 Tips for Individual Goal Coaching in Groups:

1. Stay fair: If you have 10 people or less, make sure each person gets individual coaching at least once during the entire program.
2. Make it easy: Create a set of 5-7 questions your group members can use to coach each other around their goals. You may like to adapt the 7 Questions Michael Bungay Stanier recommends for Leaders in his The Coaching Habit book (see the book review here).
3. Increase commitment: Wrap-up the goals section of the weekly session by asking the group members to share one key action with the group.

2) If You Decide to EXCLUDE Goal-Setting in Your Group:

There is a lot of value in just the tools alone and the topics they raise. In addition, in a workshop or group situation, people are not expecting individual focus from you in the same way as one-on-one coaching. So in a group coaching situation, you could leave out the goal-setting and action-setting part of the Renew You Program, and instead do some simple visioning.

Overview:

Instead of the goals focus during each group session, you would instead:

1. Review and debrief what people learned from their homework form
2. Introduce and discuss the topic of the upcoming homework form to set the scene and prepare them.

Here are Specific Changes to Make:

Session 1 - Specific Changes/Suggestions:

• In the individual program, the homework from Session 1 is to complete their Coaching Goals Worksheet.
• Instead of setting specific goals, ask them to do some short-term visioning.
• Get them imagining what they would like their life to be like at the end of this program. It works well to give them this as homework to journal around.
• You could ask them to: Write out what a day in their life would look like at the end of this program.
• Questions to help them with this process include, What's different? How are they different? What are they doing differently? What changes have they made? How will they be feeling? What will they be seeing, hearing? What is the big "signal" or sign that their life IS different/improved? What is the one thing that will make the biggest difference?

Session 2 - Specific Changes/Suggestions

• In the homework "review" part at the beginning Session 2, ask your group members to share their short-term "visions".
• They can share these in pairs, with the whole group - or you could put people in to small groups of 3-4 people.
• TIP: A nice touch can be to ask people to share or observe any common themes they notice across people's visioning.

Another idea - Vision Boarding:

• Simply skip Session 1 homework. Or (if you don't have a big stack of magazines like I do!) ask people to find magazines with bright, inspiring images to bring in or use at the next session!
• Then use Session 2 as a mini workshop to Create Vision Boards for how they would like their life to be.
• This could be a vision board for how they would like their life to be at the end of this 3 Month Program. You could also ask them to envision their "ideal" life.
• TIP: Allow time at the end for people to share their completed vision boards with each other.

Consider your Timing - More Time is needed with Groups:

There is always more work with groups - and more questions, so you'll need to allow more time to run Renew You in a Group Coaching setting.

Per Session/Week: I would allow at least 1.5 hours a week if you're NOT including the goals piece, and 2-3 hours if you do include the goal-setting piece. This allows plenty of time for warm-up, closedown, questions - and any demonstrating/laser coaching you might do.

Other Options to Consider When Running "Renew You" for Groups:

When running Renew You with groups, you're not limited to just the weekly group sessions. You could also offer some one-on-one time with you. Here are some ideas:

• You could offer a set number of laser coaching sessions for each group member to be held outside the regular weekly sessions. This could be included in the price - or as an add-on.
• You could include one laser or normal coaching session per person at the beginning to SET their goals.
• AND/OR you could include one coaching session per person at the END to review progress/success - and set their goals going forwards. This could be a great way to get really  personal with your one-on-one coaching offer.

Using Renew You in a Workshop Format

There are so many variations on how you could run Renew You as an in-person workshop that we couldn't possibly cover them here! It would depend on what parts of Renew You you want to cover, how long the workshop or workshops would be, your clientele and their needs and much more.

One way to break up the entire Renew You Program into a workshop format is to run 3 or 4 full day workshops covering each month or 4 week section in the program:

0. Pre-work form and Set Goals

• • Day 1: Take Stock and Take Action (Sessions 1 thru 4)
  • Day 2: Clear out the Clutter (Sessions 5 thru 9)
  • Day 3: Set Yourself up for Success & Wrap-up/Learnings (Sessions 9 thru 12, plus wrap-up session 13)
    OR add on a 4th day to solely focus on the Wrap-up
  • Day 4: Wrap-up, Review learnings, Set up next set of goals, make your follow-on offer (Session 13).

You'll need to think about how you incorporate the goal-setting and action-planning into the pre-work, and each workshop day.

Day 4 could also be run virtually as a shorter session to draw everyone together, minimise travel etc.

"I used Renew You! as a pilot with some clients as a group coaching, and they LOVED it! Worksheets were assigned as homework, and we met via Zoom every week to discuss. Comments including things like "I feel more confident now" and "My eyes have been opened after this program". They loved the worksheets." Kate Rodrigue, Certified Coach

Learn more about the Renew You, Life Coaching Program here >>

Effective Group Coaching 101: The 5 Key Skills Any Group Coach Needs! | By Jennifer BrittonIf you liked this article on Group Coaching and our Renew You Coaching Program, you may also like:

• How to Decide What to Charge for Your Coaching Program - with 5 Steps PLUS Specific Examples to Help!
• What is Group Coaching? | By Jennifer Britton
• Read the Review of: Renew You, Love Your Life! Coaching Program in choice Magazine

Contributing Author:

Emma-Louise Elsey has been coaching since 2003 and is the Founder of The Coaching Tools Company and Fierce Kindness.com. She's passionate about coaching and personal development. Originally a project and relationship manager for Fortune 500 companies she combined her love of coaching, creativity and systems to create over 100 brandable coaching tools, forms and exercises including 30+ completely free coaching tools. She now serves coaches and the coaching world through her exclusive newsletter for coaches, Coaches Helping Coaches Facebook Group and many other great tools for coaches, plus resources and ideas for your coaching toolbox. The Coaching Tools Company is an official ICF Business Solutions Partner.

Learn more about Emma-Louise & see all their articles here >>