Changing the tense of a coachee's desired outcome

Although it’s generally important to use the other person’s words when asking Five-Minute Coach questions, there are times when it is really helpful to change the tense. When the outcome or goal is ‘I want to be…’, or ‘I want to have…’, change it in your question to: ‘And when you are...’ or ‘And when you have…’

For example, when the coachee says:

‘I want to be more assertive’

You ask, assuming you are in stage 2:

‘And when you are more assertive, then what happens?’

In this way you facilitate that person to do some valuable thinking from the context of the outcome or goal, having achieved it, rather than from the perspective of fixing the problem.