Coaching is a profession (or endeavor) based on communication. Coaches employ words effectively in order to support the client as she or he creates new awareness, designs new actions, and thereby generates desired results. Used rightly, words can bring worlds into existence. So coaches exercise wisdom when it comes to words – our own words as well as the words used by those we coach.

One of the most powerful communication tools we coaches have is the ability to make distinctions – to recognize that two things are not the same and that the difference matters. As Mark Twain said, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” Here are four distinctions to which I try to pay close attention because the differences tend to matter greatly.

Pronouns. I pay attention to a client’s use of pronouns, plural pronouns to be precise. I once worked with a pastor who’d also taken on a leadership role with a large non-profit organization. Within five minutes I noticed he used “we” when describing the church and “they” when describing the non-profit. After a while I shared my observation and asked him what meaning there might be in his choice of words. He instantly recognized that he felt a very low sense of ownership and identity with the non-profit. He confessed that the leadership role felt like wearing someone else’s shoes. He resigned within a few months.

Considering or Deciding. Coaching helps move a client toward some goal or desired outcome. But accomplishment and outcomes are not spontaneous. Instead, there’s a chain of events in the client’s mental process. That chain typically consists of noticing the challenge, considering options, deciding what to do, determining exactly how to move forward, then doing it. A distinction that often trips up clients and coaches is that between considering and deciding, specifically when a client has narrowed options to one best option. Knowing the one best option is not a decision since there is often more deliberation needed before the client can fully decide she wants to take the action. Coaches need to recognize the distinction between a client who’s still considering vs. a client who’s decided. Often a client who’s still considering will say things like, “I think I should…” or “I really need to….” Meanwhile, a client who’s decided might say, “I am going to….”

Retrieving vs. Discovering. As a coach, you want to help your client get somewhere new in her thinking, not simply retrieve and recount things she already knows (and knows she knows). Recently I asked a client how things would look if she set a boundary with a family member. Her response centered on how the family member had responded in the past and why the family member was difficult to be around. I challenged her by observing that she wasn’t answering the question I was asking. I was asking her to use her imagination to conceptualize how things would look if they were different, but she was using her memory to retrieve examples of how things had been. My client wasn’t being wrong (in a moral or character sense), but she was using the wrong mental system. Her retrieval system was getting in the way of her conceiving system, and there’s a big difference between the two!

Motivation. A fourth distinction that often presents itself in coaching has to do with a client’s motivation. Motivation is a person’s inner prompting to act a certain way, take a specific action, or change a pattern or behavior. Without motivation, nothing much changes. So it’s important to notice (and help the client notice) distinctions related to motivation. One of the biggest is the distinction between rational and emotional drivers. Just because a client knows (logically, rationally) what to do does not mean he will actually do it. For example, a client could know his best option for finding a better job is to connect with his network. He can say this is a good idea, one that rationally makes sense and should help increase the likelihood of helping him reach his goal. But if his emotional brain isn’t in alignment with his rational brain, he will take very little action. As coaches, we can’t get fooled by the client’s rational descriptions of what they should do. Instead, we want to help them observe the relationship and interplay of the rational and emotional so they can distinguish between what they think and what they are actually motivated to do, believe, value, etc.

In your coaching, what distinctions have you found to be especially powerful or commonly needed?