A lot of coaching models operate on the assumption that you need to understand what’s driving a client—their history, feelings, motives, or what’s happening underneath—before you can help them change.
Solution-Focused coaching doesn’t.
You don’t need to figure out why your client is stuck. And your client doesn’t need to gain insight into why they’re stuck before change can begin.
What you do need is connection.
That means meeting the client as a whole human being, showing genuine care, taking their words seriously, matching their pace, and staying curious about what matters to them and what they want.
When you stop searching for what caused the problem, the conversation can go somewhere different. Instead of analyzing why the client behaves as they do and the barriers holding them back, help them step into the future they want and look back from that future place.
Suppose a client says, “I know sugar isn’t good for me. I just can’t stop.”
Rather than trying to uncover what’s driving their sugar-related behavior, try asking two simple questions:
“Suppose you were handling sugar in a way that worked well for you. What would you be doing differently?”
“What would you have done that helped you pull that off?”
The goal isn’t to understand or figure out the client. It’s to connect with them, keep the thinking in their hands, and help them bring a better future to life.
Connect With the Client Instead of Figuring Them Out
Many coaches assume that, before you can help someone change, you need to understand why they think, feel, or behave as they do—their history, motives, barriers and triggers–in other words, what’s happening underneath the behavior.
Solution-Focused coaches don't assume that nor operate under that premise.
You don’t need to understand what’s driving your client. But you do need to connect with them.
Connecting means meeting the client as a whole human being, not as a problem to analyze or fix. It means showing genuine care, taking their words seriously, matching their pace, and staying curious about what matters to them and what they want.
That’s very different from trying to determine why they behave as they do. When you set out to understand what’s underneath the client’s behavior, you can easily form theories about their motives, needs, or difficulties. The conversation then becomes organized around your interpretation of those factors rather than around the future they want.
There’s a second solution-focused premise here as well: the client doesn’t need to understand why they’re stuck before behavior change can happen.
Solution-focused doesn’t assume clients must uncover hidden motives, process their feelings, gain insight, or change how they think before they can begin doing something different. Insight may emerge during or after change, but it isn’t a prerequisite for change.
Together, those two premises change where the conversation goes. You don’t spend the session trying to understand what caused the problem, and you don’t require the client to understand it either. Instead, you turn toward the future they want and help bring that future to life.
You can do that by asking questions that help the client describe that better future in concrete, observable detail. Then invite them to look back from that future and describe what they would have done to make it possible.
Suppose a client says, “I know sugar isn’t good for me. I just can’t stop.”
You don’t need to uncover what’s driving their sugar-eating behavior. And the client doesn’t need to understand why they do it before change can begin.
Simply ask questions that bring their preferred future to life:
“Suppose you were handling sugar in a way that worked well for you. What would you be doing differently?”
“What would you have done that helped you pull that off?”
“Suppose we fast-forwarded a week or so and you were beginning to make progress. What would you notice that would tell you things were moving in the right direction?”
Remember: You don’t have to understand what’s driving your client to help them. Your job isn’t to figure them out. It’s to connect with them, sit beside them with genuine curiosity, help them step into the future they want by asking them to look back and describe what they would have done to make that better future their reality.
We invite you to share: Where do you notice yourself reaching for why, and what might you ask instead? Hit reply and tell us. We read every response.
Connecting with a client, and asking the questions that bring their preferred future to life, is one of the core competencies practitioners build in Foundations in Solution-Focused Health Coaching, the certification for health and performance professionals.
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References
- Teplow, D. (2026). Don’t I Have to Understand My Client to Help Them? The Solution-Focused Practice.