The last few minutes of a session

You and your client have agreed to be together for a certain amount of time, let’s say forty-five minutes. As the session proceeds, the end starts to approach.

The end of a session is typically experienced in one of three ways: (1) The session has started to drag a bit, and it feels a little bit like pulling teeth to get to the end. (2) It is hard to end the session, because so much is going on and because there is so much more to do. (3) Or, blissfully, you end exactly on time, with both of you experiencing a lovely sense of closure.

As we’ve seen, beginning a session is as easy as saying, “Good to see you!” Ending a session is harder. First, you are trying to hit a certain mark, say a quarter before the next hour. You may not only want to hit this mark but may need to hit this mark, as other timed tasks, like a next session, may be looming.

Second, you want your client to know exactly what she is going to try to get accomplished between this session and the next session. You want it to be clear what her goals are and what “homework” she will attempt to accomplish, if you “assign” homework. You might invite her to summarize her understanding of her goals and homework; or you might take it upon yourself to do that summarizing.

Third, you want to end on a positive note, rather than a down note. You want to end with a shared sense of hope and possibility. To do this, you may need to pull a tendril of hope out of thin air, if the session has been mostly about challenges and difficulties.

This is a lot … and takes a bit of practice to learn.

With practice, you will learn how to do this effectively without thinking about it very much. You will be aware that a session is coming to a close and that you need both to summarize, so that your client knows exactly what’s up, and also to aim for a hopeful, positive conclusion to the session.

You do this by taking charge of the last couple of minutes of the session and by saying something like the following:

“Sorry to interrupt! We have so much more to look at! But we’re getting near the end of the session, and I want to make sure that I’m clear on what you’re hoping to get done over the next two weeks. Can we focus there for a moment?”

“Yes,” your client replies.

“Great! That’s excellent! Then let me do a bit of summarizing …”

If, after summarizing and after engaging in some last cheerleading, you have arrived at your exact ending time, then you are perfectly done. If, however, there are still a few minutes remaining, you can either say, “I think that’s a great place to stop!” and not worry about ending a few minutes early; or you can say, “Great! It looks like we have a minute or two remaining. Any last thing we should consider?” Typically, your client will reply, “No, I think that’s a great place to end” — and you are done.

I always build into this summary the reminder that I am available for check-ins, if my client would like to check in regularly or periodically between sessions via email. I do not find these check-ins burdensome to handle, and I don’t charge extra for them. Another coach certainly might. This is a matter for each coach to decide, whether to allow for check-ins (and even lobby for them) or whether to skip offering them.

Ending a coaching session is a bit of an art form. But it is a process made up of understandable parts, including, from my point of view, the coach summarizing and the coach ending with hope. Picture a session with a new client. You’ve been chatting and working together for almost an hour. Now … how might you end the session?

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