14 Coaching Questions to Help Your Clients Think Outside The Box

Have you ever wished you had more impactful questions to help your clients get out of a rut? It may seem more difficult to break them out of their limited thinking when they’re stuck, but it’s not impossible.

It’s always important to relate to your clients. Think about the last time you were stuck in a rut. Maybe you felt like you weren’t making progress with your goals, or maybe you felt like you were doing everything wrong. In situations like this, it’s easy to get discouraged and feel like there’s no way out. 

As a coach, you can provide guidance and support to help your clients overcome whatever obstacles are preventing them from achieving their goals. You likely already know that questions are one of the best tools that a coach has. Let’s elevate yours!

Here are 14 coaching questions to help your clients think outside the box and come up with new solutions to old problems. Use them intentionally, and watch your clients blossom into their best selves!

What are Option Questions?

One of the reasons clients hire coaches is because they want to discover a new way to think about their problems and achieve their goals. As humans, we are creatures of habits, and our brain protects us by making the same decisions over and over again as a way to keep us safe. 

But, we no longer live in the wild, where every step we took had to be carefully examined to ensure our safety, so this way of thinking doesn’t always serve us. 

This is where option questions come in. They help us help our clients to think outside of the box and come up with multiple potential solutions to recurring problems. 

Before we dive in, you need to know that many of the questions we present here are inspired by Coaching Questions by Tony Stolzfus. We highly recommend you buy a hard copy for your desk AND a digital copy for easy access on your phone.

14 Coaching Questions to Help Your Clients Think Outside The Box

What would you recommend?

You mentioned that _______. Could you suggest any other approaches?

Is there anything you can think of that might work?

Can you think of any other options?

Do you have a specific outcome in mind?

Are there any resources you have available to help?

How would you coach yourself around this if you were the coach?

To resolve this, what is the first thing you need to do?

Can you think of any obstacles that may prevent you from accomplishing your goal? How could you remove them?

You want to ensure consistent success, so how can you do that?

What question, if you knew the answer, would solve that problem?

Take a moment to think about what you just said. What did you hear?

We should consider at least five solutions. Do you have any other ideas?

What have you done in the past to deal with something similar?

Final Thoughts

Coaching clients will benefit when you challenge assumptions and encourage them to break out of existing outlooks. In this way, they will be guided towards new and insightful strategies for overcoming their obstacles.

The questions we provided can help you get started, but it’s important to be flexible and tailor them to fit your client’s specific needs. 

We hope you found these questions helpful and thought-provoking. If you did, let us know in the comments below – we’d love to hear how they worked for you. And if you have any other favorite brainstorming techniques or questions, share them with us too!