Week 11 – lecture 4

Giving and receiving feedback is a skill. Knowing how to provide effective and appropriate
feedback as a coach can definitely help your clients with challenges in their mindset and
confidence.

There are several components of effective feedback, let's look at those first.

• Give feedback with a purpose and consider the point of your feedback. What do you want
to come out of this? Are you trying to direct the client's attention to something? Talk them
through something? Learn something? Focus on a small piece of their behavior? What do
you want them to feel? What do you want them to do?

• Observe and understand first. Good feedback comes from good observation. Listen,
watch, and learn. Gather information. Seek to understand. Only then, offer feedback.

• Be clear. Keep it simple.

• Think about being effective rather than right. Good feedback is not about convincing,
impressing, or arguing your point. It's about making effective and meaningful change for a
client.

• Focus on one or two small pieces at a time. Let's say you're reviewing a client's food
journal. You can see all kinds of problems – skipping meals and then overeating sugary
soda, donuts, and so forth. You might desperately want to tell the client that everything
needs to change. However, that would be quite overwhelming. Instead, start with one small
change that would make a big difference.

• Keep it specific, concrete, and real. Instead of saying, “everything in moderation”, which is
too vague, suggest having water instead of juice, or saying their portion of carbohydrates
should be about the size of a cupped handful. A client will be able to understand whether
they've been able to do this or not.

• Use images, video, and other demonstrations if necessary. These can be more effective
than words. For example – “I'm thinking that if we could just clean some trigger foods out of
your pantry for now, you might feel less tempted. Here's a before and after picture of what one of
my other clients did when they cleaned their problem foods out of their kitchen and restocked it
with healthier stuff they liked.”

PN Level 2 Master Health Coaching Certification

© 2021 Precision Nutrition, Inc. -1-
Week 11 - lecture 4: Transcript

• Show clients where their challenges are and then show them how to do it better. Clients
often cannot feel or see when they are doing things incorrectly. So you might say, “Here's
what I'm noticing – your knees are going inwards like this when you squat [coach demonstrates].
What you want to feel is actually more like this, pushing outwards [coach demonstrates].”

• Make feedback collaborative. Help the client learn along with you. Ask for their feedback
on their own performance, “After reviewing your food journal, I have some thoughts, but I'd like
to hear yours first. Put your coach hat on – what do you see as successful here and what might
you try improving?”

• Focus on the positive. As we've talked about before, look for bright spots in what the client
is already doing well, and give positive instructions. In other words, “Do X” instead of, “Do
not do X”. Focus on what you can add, substitute, and/or direct the client to do.

The feedback process has three elements:

• before the client action

• during the client action

• after the client action

Before the client action, help them prepare and anticipate. You might say, “Okay, Liz, today's
Friday. I know that weekends are a challenge for you in terms of healthy eating. What strategies could you
use this weekend given your schedule? Let's plan now. Then we can pick one strategy to really focus on.”

During the client action, rely more on “felt sense” feedback rather than verbal instructions. Help
prepare the client to check in on bodily cues. You might say, “Sarah, during this meal, I want you to
keep checking in with your stomach signals and see if you can feel when you're satisfied. You can even
put your hand on your stomach to give yourself some extra touch cues as you're learning.”

After the action, you want to give feedback as soon as possible. For example, if you notice your
client is checking in regularly and has tracked their behavior goal four days in a row, a new
record, don't wait until you're check in 10 days later. Drop a quick note and say something as
soon as you can. Waiting too long can diminish the effectiveness of the feedback, positive or
negative.

Test resonance, confidence, and understanding constantly at every stage. You could ask a client
to demonstrate the action you've asked them to do, or to repeat back to you their understanding
of the action. Remember to use your confidence check: “On a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you
that you can do X?” And to scale the action back if they say anything less than a 9. You can use
your ready, willing, able questions here too.

PN Level 2 Master Health Coaching Certification

© 2021 Precision Nutrition, Inc. -2-
Week 11 - lecture 4: Transcript

If you're not sure what you want to say to a client or why, or you are drowning the client in
complex feedback, take a step back and revise your approach. That's easier said than done, so,
when you're uncertain or feel stuck on how to provide feedback, try one of these three techniques.

1. Do a mind-body scan on yourself, especially if you're feeling a sort of vague, “Ugh, I know
something is wrong, but I can't say what” sensation.

2. Try writing out or otherwise getting the ideas down on paper (perhaps a doodle or a mind
map).

3. Try talking it through with a colleague or with your peers first. Many folks find that
exchanging ideas helps clarify what they want to express and why.

If you're looking for a place to collaborate with your peers, be sure to join us during our weekly
office hours. These provide a safe place to brainstorm ideas you can take back to use in your
coaching practice.

Take a moment here to think about a recent client session. What feedback did you give, and how?
How was it received? What methods from this lecture might you use next time, and why?

Until next time.

PN Level 2 Master Health Coaching Certification

© 2021 Precision Nutrition, Inc. -3-