The best life coaching tools are rarely expensive or complicated. A good question sheet, a journaling prompt or a one-page list often does more for a client than a long assessment, because it gets them thinking in their own words between sessions. Most of them are free or cost very little.
Below, each tool comes with what it is for and when to use it, after a short look at what life coaching tools are and who uses them. The Top Life Coaching Tools list gives you nine you can try with a client this week, and each takes minutes to set up.
TL;DR
Life coaching tools are the exercises, worksheets, questionnaires and activities a coach uses to help a client see their situation clearly, reflect and act. The most useful set is simple: question sheets to open a client up, journaling prompts for self-reflection, learning-process worksheets that lead to action, list-making and visualizing exercises such as the Wheel of Life and a life map, re-evaluation sheets that challenge old habits, metaphors and stories, time management exercises such as Big Rocks and the Action Priority Matrix, and quizzes and group activities. Use them from the first session to the last, as homework between sessions and in workshops, and pick each one for the client’s goal rather than using them all.
What is Life Coaching?
Life coaches are trained professionals who act as a trusted supporter. They guide and encourage a client toward self-awareness, so the client gets a clear and realistic view of their situation, identifies challenges, charts an action plan and takes responsibility for the steps that reach their personal or professional goals.
The life coaching process is a partnership. It helps clients discover more about themselves, see where they are and where they want to go, and work through transitions or problems that have stalled a relationship or a career, so they can pursue meaningful goals and build the life they want.
What are Life Coaching Tools?
Life coaching tools are exercises, workbooks, worksheets, questionnaires or forms that a life coach uses in one-on-one sessions, group coaching, webinars, workshops or assignments. They help a client see their situation clearly, think through challenges and how to overcome them, find hidden talents, learn new capabilities and become more open to change.
Tools for life coaching can include personality assessments, interviews and in-depth questionnaires delivered through stories or metaphors, coaching exercises, games and books, quizzes, templates and learning activities. They are one branch of the wider set of coaching tools and techniques used across every coaching niche.
In short, tools for life coaches add to the coach-client relationship. They let the client share information, reflect, learn, get inspired, come up with new ideas and make progress. A coach can tailor each tool to a client’s situation to speed up their understanding and growth.
Who Can Use Life Coaching Tools?
Life coaching tools give a coach insight into a client’s mindset: their troubles, ambitions, inhibitions, hidden aptitudes and goals. That is why therapists, counselors, human resources professionals, student and career counselors, financial advisors and corporate consultants use them as well as life coaches. Many of them also work for self-coaching, when you want to reflect on your own life between sessions with a coach.
Importance of Using Life Coaching Tools
Life coaching tools help a coach make a real difference in a client’s life. They help clients recognize their capabilities, face real and potential obstacles, spot the barriers that slow their progress and find answers that move them toward their objectives. In short, they improve the experience for clients and help them get the results they want sooner.
When to Use Life Coaching Tools?
Just as a carpenter picks the tool that suits the piece of furniture being made, a life coach uses different coaching tools at the moments and in the situations that suit each client best.
Tools such as question forms, worksheets, templates, exercises and quizzes can be used from the first session, as homework between sessions, in webinars or workshops and right up to the final wrap-up, so each one moves the client steadily toward their goals. Keeping the forms and worksheets in one place makes this easier, and the best life coach apps store them alongside session notes and goals.
How We Chose These Life Coaching Tools
Each tool on the list earned its place by what it gets a client to do. Cost and brand played no part.
- What we compared: nine kinds of life coaching tools, from question sheets and journaling prompts to time management exercises and group activities.
- How we chose them: each tool had to be simple enough to use in a session or as homework, and lead the client to a clearer view or a next step.
- Where the details come from: established life coaching practice, checked against the free tools and resources that rank for life coaching tools today.
- What we left out: paid psychometric assessments that need certification to use, and coaching software, which has its own comparison.
- Limits of the list: these tools support coaching rather than replace it, and the right one depends on the client’s goal.
Top Life Coaching Tools
Life coaching tools are designed to make a positive difference in a client’s life. The ones below are simple, easy to use and effective with most clients.
| Tool | Best for | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Insightful questions sheet | Getting to know a new client | Before or during the first session |
| Journaling prompts | Self-reflection and values | Between sessions |
| Learning process worksheets | Turning insight into action steps | Once a goal area is clear |
| List-making exercises | Seeing where time and energy go | Early, to set priorities |
| Visualizing exercises | Patterns across areas of life | Early, and again at reviews |
| Re-evaluation tools | Questioning limiting habits | When the client feels stuck |
| Transformational tools | Reframing a hard situation | During a difficult change |
| Time management tools | Doing more with limited time | When the client is overstretched |
| Quizzes and activities | Self-awareness and group bonding | Workshops and group sessions |
1. Insightful questions sheet
One of the most important life coaching tools to start with, question sheets (such as a thoughtful questions sheet, a career options sheet or a behavioral assessment sheet) help a client explore themselves and their situation in depth. For the coach, the answers give valuable information about the client’s mindset, behaviors, attitudes and ambitions, and help chart the way forward. A bank of powerful coaching questions gives you more to add to any sheet.
Perfect the art of asking questions
Get your hands on ‘The Ultimate Guide to Asking Powerful Coaching Questions’
2. Journaling prompts
Journaling prompts, or self-reflection exercises, let the client tap into their deepest feelings, hurts, likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, goals and obstacles, and sort out what matters most in their life. Prompts such as “Describe your daily routine”, the rocking chair exercise or “What advice would you give your 16-year-old self?” help the client think clearly about the past, picture their future and focus on core values.
These prompts help with decision-making, self-motivation and realistic goal setting, and they can inspire the client to work toward their stated objectives.
If you want a ready-made option, the self-reflection tool in Simply.Coach gives clients guided prompts to review progress and plan next steps. It is one of the forms you can send as homework between sessions.
3. Learning process life coach worksheets
A learning process worksheet is a coaching exercise built from a series of questions. The answers give insight into one area of the client’s life and then lead to action steps.
Exercises such as daily successful habits, a personal value finder, a delegation exercise or a SMART goal setting questionnaire build learning one question at a time, until the client knows which step to take. Worksheets like the Action Brainstorming Worksheet help clients spot behaviors that help or hinder them, and you can find it at The Coaching Tools Company.
Pro tip: If you are not sure where to start, David Bonham-Carter’s book “50 Life Coaching Exercises” collects practical exercises you can adapt.
4. List-making exercises
One of the more effective life coaching tools, the list-making worksheet asks the client to list what they like, what they do not like, what is important to them and what is not. A written list shows where they are wasting time or draining resources, who is truly supporting them and who is not adding value to their life. With it, the client can move energy, time and effort toward positive people and productive work and cut out what drags them down.
5. Visualizing exercises
Visualizing helps clients understand and clarify the different parts of their life, present and future. The Wheel of Life and a life map are two visual exercises that help a client spot patterns in their life, think of new ways to improve areas that need attention and see their life with fresh eyes.
6. Re-evaluation tools
Many clients settle into a fixed routine and outlook, which can include limiting habits, behaviors and beliefs that hold back progress. Re-evaluation question sheets are a good way to shake clients out of their usual thought patterns and unhelpful habits. They help clients find ways to turn a problem into an opportunity or a weakness into a strength.
These exercises also show the client that discomfort has its own lessons, and that stepping out of their comfort zone can be the first step toward personal development.
7. Transformational tools (metaphor or story)
Individual stories or metaphors are strong learning tools that can change how a client sees a problem. A career that has stalled, a difficult relationship or a health issue can each be worked through with step-by-step coaching exercises, where the client writes down their wishes, the actions they have already taken and the important things they can still do to reach their goals.
Letting go of negative thoughts and actions that hold them back, and putting priorities in order through the Big Rocks, Little Rocks exercise, help the client see their problems from a new angle. These exercises also reassure clients that their experience is not unique and that many of their peers face the same thing, and they help put what truly matters at the top of the priority list.
8. Efficiency & time management coaching tools
A lot of time goes into unimportant tasks that do not help a client grow. Efficiency and time management worksheets help clients separate the wheat from the chaff, cutting activities that are not useful, waste time or are outside their control. They can then spend that time on more productive, important and urgent work, such as SMART goals and tasks that give a better return on their time and energy.
Exercises such as the spheres of influence and the Action Priority Matrix are especially helpful in getting clients to do more with their time.
9. Coaching quizzes & activities
Coaching quizzes are a smart way to gauge where a client is in their life. They help clients raise their self-awareness and rate how satisfied they are in areas such as personal life, career and health, how motivated they feel and how willing they are to work on their challenges.
Coaching activities, where the client physically takes part in an exercise, are fun and effective. They work well as ice breakers that connect people and prompt them to name things they are grateful for, and they are mostly used in group life coaching or workshops to build communication, connection and trust within the group.
Check out our repository of online coaching tools
We have different coaching tools for different stages of the coaching engagement which you can test and customise as per your coaching methodology!
Conclusion
Life coaching tools work because they are simple. A question sheet, a journaling prompt or a one-page list gets a client thinking in their own words, and exercises such as the Wheel of Life, Big Rocks and the Action Priority Matrix turn that thinking into priorities.
Choose each tool for the client’s goal and the stage of the engagement, and use it between sessions as well as in them. Simply.Coach keeps these forms, worksheets and the client’s answers in one place, so you can both see progress over time.
Key Takeaways
- Simple beats complex. A one-page sheet a client finishes does more than a long assessment they abandon.
- Start with questions. A questions sheet before the first session tells you where to focus.
- Reflection needs a prompt. A specific journaling question gets deeper answers than asking how the week went.
- Lists show the leaks. Writing down what drains and what supports a client makes the trade-offs visible.
- Challenge the comfortable. Re-evaluation sheets help a client question habits they have stopped noticing.
- Protect what matters most. Time management exercises put the most important work on the calendar first.
- Groups need activities. Quizzes and ice breakers build trust before a group starts real work.
If your life coaching worksheets and journaling prompts live in email attachments, clients lose them between sessions. Simply.Coach lets you send coaching forms and worksheets that clients fill in and you review in one place. See how your toolkit would look in it.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is the use of life coaching tools?
Life coaches use these tools to help clients understand their strengths and capabilities, identify and deal with real obstacles, make steady progress and reach their goals sooner. A well-chosen tool also gives the client something concrete to work on between sessions, which keeps momentum going.
How to use life coaching tools?
Bring tools such as question forms, worksheets, templates, exercises and quizzes into the engagement from the first session onward. Use them in sessions, as homework between sessions and in webinars or workshops, and choose each one for the client's goal and where they are in the engagement.
What are the best coaching tools?
The best coaching tools are the simple ones a client will actually use: a questions sheet before the first session, journaling prompts, the Wheel of Life, list-making exercises and a time management exercise such as Big Rocks. Pick the one that fits the client's goal right now rather than using them all.
Where can I find free life coaching tools?
Many useful tools cost nothing: question sheets, journaling prompts, the Wheel of Life, list-making exercises and time management exercises such as Big Rocks need only paper and a good set of questions. Coaching platforms also include ready-made forms you can send to clients between sessions.
What resources do life coaches need?
Most life coaches need a set of intake questions, a few reflection and goal-setting worksheets, a values exercise, a way to track progress between sessions and somewhere to keep notes and forms. A book such as 50 Life Coaching Exercises by David Bonham-Carter adds ready-made exercises to adapt.
Can I use life coaching tools on myself?
Yes. Journaling prompts, the Wheel of Life, list-making and time management exercises all work for self-coaching. A coach still adds an outside view and accountability that are hard to give yourself, so self-coaching works best for small changes or between coaching engagements.