There's no question that one of the most common and significant challenges in solution-focused practice is what to do in the moment when a client comes back reporting that little or nothing has changed since the last session.
They say:
"I didn't really do anything differently."
"Things were pretty much the same."
"Honestly, it wasn't a great week."
How do you respond?
It's easy to hear that and think, "Okay, this is a motivation problem." So you start encouraging, educating, persuading, or trying to help them feel more ready. Or, you review what went wrong or what got in the way.
But there is a simpler way to respond.
Listen for Exceptions. Don't Dig for Them.
When the client gives you multiple statements, you don't need to respond to all of them. You don't need to unpack the entire week. Instead, listen for one statement that contains something workable. For example, when a client says, "Things were pretty much the same," that tells you something important: things didn't get worse.
That's something you can build on. From there, just ask a simple, but powerful question:
"How did you manage to keep things from getting worse?"
That question shifts the conversation in a very specific way. It moves you away from what didn't happen and toward what the client did that made a difference. Even if that difference was simply holding steady. It is the same move as listening for exceptions, the times the problem was already a little smaller, except here the exception is already in the room. You don't have to dig for it.
And then you stay with it. Don't move on to the next question or go back to what went wrong. Build from what your client gave you:
- "What did you do to hold steady?"
- "How did you decide to do that? Or try that?"
- "What did you notice that told you it was working?"
At first, clients may not have an answer right away. They may not have been paying attention to what helped. But if you stay with the question, they begin to identify small actions, choices, or ways of responding that mattered. They might say they paused instead of reacting. Or followed through on one small thing. Or did something that helped keep the situation from getting worse.
Those details matter.
"Now the client is describing something real they did, not something they failed to do."
The goal here is not to fix anything. It's to help the client recognize what they are already doing that is useful. And that's often enough to begin to spur action and build confidence.
Try it this week. The next time a client says the week was "pretty much the same," resist analyzing what went wrong. Ask how they kept things from getting worse, then stay with it. Hit reply and tell us what they discovered. We read every response.
Practitioners learn this listening structure in Foundations in Solution-Focused Health Coaching, the certification for health and performance professionals.
The Solution-Focused Practice
A bi-weekly newsletter for health and performance professionals. Evidence-based insights on the Solution-Focused approach, edited by Dr. Deborah Teplow.
Subscribe to the Newsletter → References
- Teplow, D. (2026). Listen for Exceptions. Don't Dig for Them. The Solution-Focused Practice.