Our best life coaching questions can uplevel your coaching sessions and empower you to make an even greater impact

Great life coaching questions are a powerful tool that can help you gain insight into your client’s dreams, challenges, and blocks. They also help your client find new perspectives and solutions they may have never considered before.

We’ve gathered our favorite life coaching questions you can use in almost any coaching session (bookmark this to refer back to later!)– and who knows, our list may even inspire you to craft some inspiring questions of your own!

111 life coaching questions for powerful sessions

Great life coaching questions like these are a fantastic resource as you grow as a life coach, but a successful life coaching business isn’t built on coaching skills alone– after all, there’s a big difference between being a great life coach and running a thriving coaching business.

If you could use some practical, proven guidance on creating and growing a thriving coaching business, check out the Thriving Coach Checklist.

Download the checklist and save it for later while you keep reading some of our best life coaching questions to uplevel your coaching sessions and make the greatest impact on your clients’ lives.

Questions for Potential Coaching Clients

Use these questions before you share your pricing structure with new and potential life coaching clients. They can help a person gain a clear sense of what they’d most love to be, do, and have in their life before you discuss the investment needed to work with you.

What would you love?
How much have you wanted this to change in your life… and what is it costing you to not make that change (or keep trying to make it unsuccessfully yourself)?
Imagine you have everything in your life that you truly desire. What would that reality be worth to you?

For more on how to discuss pricing with potential coaching clients, click here.

Good Questions to Start a Coaching Session

These questions are a great way to open up a coaching session, whether with a new or a return client.

When starting a life coaching session, focus on questions that help establish clear expectations for how the time will be spent and how your client will know the session was successful.

What would you love to accomplish with our time together?
If you could set one goal for our session today, what would that be?
What challenges or goals are a priority for you today?
How would you know if our coaching session was successful today?
How would you like to feel at the end of our time together?
What question would you like to discover the answer to today?
What support, insight, or solutions would you like to leave with today?

Life Coaching Questions for Follow-Up Sessions

Use these coaching questions to check in with your client after a previous coaching session or to assess their progress on a particular goal or challenge.These questions are best suited for return-clients.

What have you accomplished or what has changed since we last spoke?
What has gone really well since our last session? What hasn’t gone as well as you’d hoped?
What have you learned from your experiences this week? How can that insight help you continue to achieve your goals?
What are you grateful for since we last spoke?
What mistakes have you made since our last session, and how have you learned from them?
What challenges have you faced and how did you respond?
What challenges did you expect to face that you did not have to overcome?
Is this the best outcome, or can you imagine something even greater?
Based on your experiences this past week, have your strategy or commitments changed?
What beliefs or assumptions have been challenged since we last spoke?

Understanding Your Client’s Mindset

Professional coaches know that the right coaching questions can help them gain insight into the mindset, priorities, and beliefs their client is holding. These questions will help you be a good detective and gain insight into your client.

If you were being completely honest, how would you describe your level of satisfaction with your current reality?
If we could guarantee one positive change as a result of our coaching relationship, what would you most love that to be?
What does your unique vision of success look like? What would you most like to be, do, or have?
What do you believe is preventing you from accomplishing your goals or experiencing better results in your life?
What new skills do you believe you need in order to accomplish your long-term goals?
What are your 3 most important life values?
If you could make one change to have a happier life, what would you most want to change?
What is the biggest problem or challenge you believe you have?
On a scale of 0-10, how satisfied are you with your life?
On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied are you with the efforts you’ve made to change your life before now?
What does it feel like to be you?
What do you wish other people understood about you?
What dreams do you have that you aren’t currently pursuing?
Where would you like to be right now in this area of your life?
Is there something you’ve always wanted to do, but haven’t?

Questions to Uncover Limiting Beliefs

We all have paradigms- collections of beliefs and assumptions that impact how we think, feel, and what we do, and ultimately the results we experience.

The right life coaching questions can help you and your client uncover these often-hidden blocks, clearing the pathway from where your client is now to where they want to be.

Who do you believe you need to become in order to achieve your goals and realize your dream?
If you were to achieve everything you desired, what negative things might you experience as a result?
Who would be hurt, upset, jealous, or feel negatively toward you if you were to achieve everything you desired?
What do you believe you’d have to give up if you were to achieve everything you desired?
What does success cost?
What relationships do you believe you’d lose if you were to achieve everything you desired?
Is there a hidden benefit to not solving this problem or not achieving this goal?
By not solving this problem or achieving this goal, is there part of you that is trying to ensure you get or continue to have something you want?
By not solving this problem or achieving this goal, is there part of you that is trying to ensure you avoid something you do not want?
When can you remember trying and failing before now? What did you learn from that experience that might not be true now?
Is there anything about your life you don’t believe can be changed?
Does this problem have an upside?
Does this dream have a downside?
Complete this sentence: “I can create a life I would absolutely love, [but / except]…”
Complete this sentence: “My dream is possible, [but / except]…”

Questions to Help Your Client Stay in the Present

The following questions are designed to help your client stay in the present moment and feel less fear, stress, and anxiety– emotions that keep clients stuck and have been linked to over-focusing on the past or the future.

These questions can help your clients tap into their inner-wisdom and facilitate real change and action now.

What are you noticing about your thoughts or feelings right now?
Do your thoughts or feelings in this moment feel expansive or limiting?
What thoughts or feelings are you noticing that might not be aligned with your best and highest good?
What do you believe is preventing you from achieving this goal? What evidence do you have right now that it’s true?
What information could the thoughts and feelings you’re noticing right now be holding for you? How could that information help you move forward?
If you didn’t have to solve this problem right now, and instead, only had to take one step in the right direction, no matter how small, what could that step be?
What skills, characteristics, or truths do you already have that might be helpful with what you’re experiencing right now?
What can you do with what you have right now?
If you were completely free from the past and not worried about the future, what do you know to be true of this specific moment?
What have you learned, gained, or changed that might make this time different from any other time before?

Questions to Create a Vision

These life coaching questions will help you support your coaching clients as they identify their big goals and cast a vision for what they would love to experience in their lives.

Expansive goal setting helps clients create specific measures for their most ideal life– clarity that will help you help them move in the right direction from where they are now.

In what areas of your life are you experiencing longing or discontent?
Can you imagine what it would look like and feel like if you were able to have or experience what you would absolutely love?
How would you know that you were living your best life? What things would you be, have, or do as a result?
If you had a magic wand and could make your dream a reality right now, what would be different about you? About your life?
What things do you currently do that allow you to “get into the zone” and lose track of time?
What types of things do other people compliment you for? Where do you receive praise and positive feedback in your life?
What would you do if you had unlimited resources?
What would you try if you knew you couldn’t fail?
Who is someone you know or know of that you really admire? What specific traits make them admirable?
If you knew this was your last year on the planet, what would you start doing that you currently aren’t? What have you been doing that you would stop?

Questions for Finding Solutions Within

These questions will help you support your coaching clients as they discover creative ways of moving forward, overcoming challenges, and ultimately, creating better outcomes using their own solutions.

Use these coaching questions when your client seems stuck, is having difficulty choosing from possible options, or needs support to overcome condition-based thinking.

If you did know the answer, what would it be?
What am I not asking that you really want me to ask?
What is the smallest step forward you could take in the direction of your dream?
What could you do now, with what you have?
What strategies have you seen other people use that might also work for you?
If a part of you knew a different way to move forward from here, what might that be?
What resources or support systems would you need to succeed?
What have you tried before that didn’t work? What is the most important thing you’ve learned from those attempts?
What’s the next step you would take if this obstacle were removed?
What option have you not tried yet? What is the best possible outcome if you did?
If that was then and this was now, how might “now” be different?

Questions to Find a New Perspective

These questions can help your clients consider new perspectives about their goals or challenges. They’re great for clients who are experiencing resistance or struggling to move forward.

Questions like this are a great way to help your life coaching clients focus on what is true and what is possible, empowering them to create change.

If a person you care about were in a similar situation, what advice would you give them?
Imagine your future self, the version of you that has already achieved what you desire. What is the first question you would ask?
What have you already tried to solve this problem or achieve this goal? What are 3 possible solutions have you not yet tried?
If you could run an experiment to solve this problem or achieve this goal without any real-life consequences, what would you try first?
By saying “yes” to this, what are you saying “no” to?
What is the best possible outcome you could experience?
What have you learned or discovered about this challenge or goal so far?
What has been most surprising or most challenging about this goal, dream, or problem?
What fears or limiting paradigms have been driving your decisions in this area? What would it look like if those were removed for a more balanced view?
What is going well in your life that you would not want to change? What insights from that area of your life might help you with this challenge or goal?
Are you focused on the problem in this situation, or the solution?
Is this an assumption you’ve made? If so, where did it come from and how do you know if it’s true?
If you were to change your belief about this, what would be possible?
How would someone who was already successful approach this differently?
Are you focused on what you already believe is possible or on what you’d actually love?

Life Coaching Questions for Accountability

You can offer your clients the tools, insight, and support to make a life change, but how each client utilizes those resources plays a crucial role in their success.

These kinds of questions can help encourage your clients to stay accountable throughout the coaching journey.

If not now, when? If not this, what?
What could you do differently in order to experience a different result?
With this insight, what have you been doing that you no longer have to do?
With this insight, what are you not doing that you plan to start?
How willing are you to do whatever it takes to experience a new result in this area of your life?
Have you truly used all of the resources at your disposal to solve this problem or achieve this goal?
Who is in control of this situation?
What might you be holding onto that’s keeping you from solving this problem or achieving this goal?
What is the first step you can take to solve this problem or achieve this goal? When can you commit to taking that step by?
What small steps toward this goal are possible for you to take between now and our next session?

Questions to End a Coaching Session

The end of a life coaching session is an opportunity to invite your client to reflect on their most significant takeaways from your time together as well as to set them up for success after they leave.

Use these questions to give your client sessions a clear sense of closure, and to ensure each person leaves with their biggest insights and action steps at top of mind.

What action can you commit to taking by next week?
What were your biggest take-aways or insights from this session?
What could you do this week that would have the biggest impact on your current situation?
How would you summarize our time together today?
Are there any specific topics or questions you want to make sure we cover in our next session?

Add your favorite life coaching questions in the comments! Together, we can inspire and empower each other to make a massive impact in the world!

Want More Tips, Tools, & Resources for Your Life Coaching Career?

At Brave Thinking Institute, we’ve been working with aspiring coaches like you for decades. We often encounter coaches who are truly gifted when it comes to guiding and helping others, but who still struggle to create the level of success in their coaching career that they truly desire.

Or, aspiring coaches come to us when they are so overwhelmed with the ins and outs of starting a business that actually works that they never really start.

In both cases, we know that the lack of support, resources, and practical tools are preventing them from doing the meaningful work they’re meant to do in the world– and that doesn’t sit well with us.

So, if you know you’d make a great coach (or maybe you already are!), but you’re overwhelmed by everything that’s required for true success as a life coach, we made the Thriving Coach Checklist for you.

You’ll get a comprehensive view of everything you need to start and grow a sustainable life coaching business with action steps you can take right now. This free checklist could be the jumpstart you’ve been looking for!