It’s good practice for coaches and mentors to spend some time after each session reflecting on what went well and less well. These reflections give us valuable insights into what to take to supervision and into our own personal development planning. Reflecting on rational aspects of the session – essentially on the process – may come more naturally than reflection upon the emotional aspects.

This uncomplicated matrix provides a stimulus for reflecting upon difficult-to-pin-down emotions. It’s particularly useful for coaches in reflecting upon how they feel after a coaching session. The association between comfort and positive outcomes, and between discomfort and negative outcomes, can be quite complex. For example:

  • Both the client and the coach are well satisfied. It’s easy in this context to tick the “well done!” box and move on. A more reflective approach, however, would express curiosity about why it went so well. A key question here is: What do I want to do more consistently?  
  • The client may express satisfaction with the session, yet the coach is not sure what they did that helped. The intent here is to learn from success and a key question here is: What was happening that I didn’t notice? 
  • When things didn’t go well and the coach feels bad about it, this can provide a strong impetus to learn from failure. At the same time, it’s important to be appropriately forgiving of ourselves. Key questions include: What am I going to pay more attention to? What am I going to do differently?
  • When the outcomes weren’t great, but the coach shrugs them off, it’s often a sign of complacency. There’s a balance between taking too much responsibility for the client’s inability to progress in their thinking and abdicating responsibility. Asking What did I do wrong? Can be unhelpful, by sending the coach off on a guilt trip. Asking What was going on in the system, of which I and the client are a part? Allows us to step back and take a more balanced, learning focused perspective.

Other, more general useful questions include:

  • What’s the nature of my comfort or discomfort? 
  • How can I employ my comfort and discomfort to improve my performance as a coach?
  • What insights are clearest for me?
  • What insights are still hazy and emergent?
  • When I take this to supervision, how will I describe it?

© David Clutterbuck, 2026