Coaching practices for Coaching Action Planning

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Coaching Action Planning, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• The people I coach leave fired up with a plan, but the first ordinary snag throws them and the whole thing quietly dies
• My coaching chats end on a warm "I’ll try to get to it" that I let slide as if it were a plan
• My plans hold up fine until something throws them off
• I start each coaching conversation from scratch and never circle back to what the person said they’d do last time
• My one-on-ones sprawl and end with nothing decided

Practices that may help

1. Obstacle anticipation before close
   Before ending, ask "what could get in the way?" and pre-plan the response.
   The GROW Coaching Model, Made Practical
2. Action Planning
   Action planning — specifying when, where, and how you will execute a goal-directed behavior — is one of the best-supported techniques for closing the intention-behavior gap. Orbell and Sheeran’s research, along with Peter Gollwitzer’s work on implementation intentions, shows that forming specific plans reliably increases behavior over vague intentions alone, with meta-analytic effect sizes in the small-to-medium range.
3. Build a concrete Will commitment
   Convert the chosen option into a specific next action with a date, and ask "what will you do?" not "what will you try?"
   The GROW Coaching Model, Made Practical
4. Plan for obstacles with coping plans
   Anticipate the specific obstacles most likely to block your plan and pre-decide your response to each.
   Action Planning
5. Close the GROW loop with session review
   At the start of the next session, review what was committed and what actually happened before setting a new goal.
   The GROW Coaching Model, Made Practical
6. Set the Goal — establish what the conversation is for
   Begin every coaching conversation by clarifying what the person wants to achieve in this session.
   The GROW Model: Coaching Conversations That Actually Move People
7. Generate Options before evaluating any
   Brainstorm all possible paths before judging — then the coachee, not the coach, narrows them.
   The GROW Coaching Model, Made Practical
8. Clarify the Goal with precision
   Establish exactly what the person wants to achieve — not the presenting topic, but the specific, owned outcome.
   The GROW Coaching Model, Made Practical
9. Write when, where, and how plans for every behavioral goal
   Specify exactly when, where, and how you will act — not just what you intend to do.
   Action Planning
10. Review and update action plans at a fixed weekly cadence
    An action plan that is not reviewed weekly becomes stale — regular review keeps the plan matched to current reality.
    Action Planning

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