Suppose your client had a sudden craving and got through it in a way they felt good about.
What would they have done? How would they have done it?
When a client answers those questions, they aren't predicting what might go wrong or working out what they should do about it. They're describing, from inside the future they want, how they got through a challenge that could have derailed them, but didn't.
The gap between the ideal and real life
When clients describe what they want and how life would be different when things are better, they picture times when things are going well, and not what happens when, as Dr. Deborah Teplow, our co-founder, describes it, "The day a craving hits. A holiday celebration comes up, or it's just been a hard day and they need ice cream."
But real life never offers us perfectly smooth sailing. That's why Solution-Focused coaching brings difficult times into the conversation, in Deborah's words, "almost from the very start."
She bases it on the simple fact that "challenges and setbacks will occur" and on a key Solution-Focused assumption that "the client has what it takes to manage the challenges."
Suppose, for example, your client wants to eat in a way that helps them feel healthier and more in control. Eating fewer sweets is one way they think they might do that, so they decide to keep cookies out of the house.
That strategy may work. But it is only one pathway to the healthier future they want. That distinction between strategy and destination becomes important as soon as real life enters the picture.
Three weeks later, your client comes home exhausted after a difficult day and discovers that their partner has brought home a box of their favorite cookies. The craving hits.
A problem-solving conversation might have prepared for this by asking in advance what could get in the way and what your client would do if it happened.
Solution-Focused coaching approaches the same challenging moment differently.
As Deborah puts it, "We invite the client to look back from the other side of the hard moment, as if they already passed through it successfully."
So instead of asking, "What will you do if you get a craving?" you might ask:
"Suppose that craving for cookies hit, and you ended up feeling good about how you handled it. What would you have done?"
Now your client isn't standing in the present trying to solve a hypothetical future problem. The craving has already happened, they've already responded to it, and they feel good about how they handled it.
Maybe they ate one cookie and enjoyed it. Maybe they realized they were hungry and made dinner. Maybe they decided they really wanted the cookies and ate three. Maybe they did something neither they nor you had thought of during the original conversation.
You don't know and couldn't know, which is part of the point.
As Deborah says, "Clients own the solution to the challenge because they build it themselves."
Bring real life into the preferred future
A preferred future isn't a perfect future. Cravings don't have to disappear, schedules don't have to stop changing, and holidays don't suddenly become easy. Those circumstances are part of life, so they should be part of the description of the better future you help your client describe.
You might ask:
"Suppose it's a couple of months from now. There have been cravings, celebrations, hectic days, and times when things didn't go as expected. And you're pleased with the way you've been eating and with how you're feeling. How would you have done that?"
Your client isn't preparing a response for every possible obstacle. They're imagining themselves farther into the future, in the context of their real day-to-day life, and describing how they would have continued creating the change they wanted.
As Deborah explained in her talk:
"These [problem-solving strategies] don't necessarily build coping with challenges in advance. Solution-Focused coaching does that explicitly. The client rehearses the hard moment before it ever arrives."
This is mental rehearsal, but not necessarily rehearsal of the original plan. As a Solution-Focused coach, you can help your client mentally live through a difficult situation and describe what they would have done to come through it in a way that worked for them.
Perhaps keeping cookies out of the house worked for several weeks and then stopped being useful. Perhaps your client changed the strategy or discovered something that suited them better.
That wouldn't mean the plan failed. It was simply one route to the desired destination.
As Deborah says, "The client owns the destination and the route."
Help your client see themselves after having gotten through the hard times
This becomes especially useful when your client has made a change before but hasn't maintained it.
Suppose they say, "I can always do this for a month. Then something happens and I go back."
A problem-solving conversation could easily turn toward what happens at the one-month mark: what gets in the way, what triggers the return to old behavior patterns or bad habits, and what your client should do differently next time.
Instead, you can go beyond that difficult point.
"Suppose it's six months from now. You've had easy weeks and difficult weeks, and you're still feeling healthier and more in control of your eating. How would you have done that?"
Now your client is imagining themselves beyond the point where previous attempts stopped working. Whatever happened during those six months is already behind them, and they are describing how they managed it successfully.
"Suppose the holidays are over. You ate differently for a while, and now you're back to eating in a way that works for you. How would you have done that?"
The same applies in coaching. Your client may use the strategy they originally chose, or when circumstances change, find another way.
That is why "What would you have done?" and "How would you have done that?" are such useful questions. They don't bind your client to a decision they made weeks earlier. Instead, your client imagines themselves in the better future after the craving, the holiday, the disrupted schedule, or the hard day has already happened, and describes how they would have handled it in a way that worked for them.
By the time real life brings that moment, your client has already imagined themselves on the other side of it.
You can also watch Deborah teach this in Beyond Motivational Interviewing, the full session this series comes from.
The Series
Drawn from Dr. Deborah Teplow's summit session, Beyond Motivational Interviewing.
- Your Clients Are Motivated. So What Builds Follow-Through?
- Every Solution-Focused Conversation Has the Same Three Parts
- Three Continents, One Pattern: Where Lasting Change Actually Starts
- Solution-Focused Practice and Motivational Interviewing: Four Points of Departure
- Select the Client’s Words to Formulate Your Next Question
- The Better Future Still Includes Hard Days (you are here)
The skill in this post is one of the things practitioners build in Foundations in Solution-Focused Health Coaching certification.
See the Difference in Action
Watch the Free Training Demonstration
Watch a Solution-Focused conversation run start to finish, with the exact questions ready for your next session.
Watch the Free Training →This post is part of a deeper comparison. For a full side-by-side breakdown of how the Solution-Focused approach and Motivational Interviewing differ in assumptions, conversational structure, evidence base, and when each fits best, read our complete guide: Solution-Focused vs. Motivational Interviewing.