You ask the open question. “What’s been getting in the way?”

And the client goes quiet.

If you’ve coached for any length of time, you know that silence. And you know the feeling that comes with it. The urge to help. To fill the space. To solve it yourself.

Motivational interviewing (MI) has a name for that urge. William Miller and Stephen Rollnick, who developed MI, call it the righting reflex. And if you’re a nurse, that reflex has had years of practice.

Here’s what it sounds like when it fills the pause:

“Sometimes it’s hormones. Have you had them checked?”

It’s kind. It’s helpful. And in one breath, you’ve named the cause and picked the test, before the client has said a word.

Most of us learned to ask a good open question early. That’s the easy part. What comes after it is where your scope of practice lives: in the second after the client answers, and in the second after that.

So the first move is no move. You wait.

If the silence runs long, “Take your time” is plenty. The pause is where the thinking happens. Whatever you put into it tends to be an answer, and when you have RN after your name, an answer sounds like a nurse’s opinion. Because it is one.

That doesn’t change because you’ve stepped out of a clinical setting. If you use motivational interviewing at work, you’re still practicing nursing. My own board, North Carolina’s, lists teaching and counseling as part of RN practice. So when you bring MI into your own coaching practice, the setting is new. Your license came with you.

Once the silence breaks, here’s what you might hear:

“I wonder if it’s my hormones.”

The reflex has an answer ready. “It could be. Have you had your levels checked?”

Naming hormones is fine. You can talk about hormones all day. But “it could be” leans the client toward a cause, and asking about levels chooses the test. So ask yourself the question that matters here: who chose? If the answer is you, you’ve crossed.

Here’s what keeps the client talking instead:

“You’ve been wondering if something physical is behind this.”

That’s a reflection. You’re not agreeing, and you’re not disagreeing. You’re handing the client’s own thought back so the thinking can keep going. And if the client wants an answer, “That’s worth bringing to your provider.”

A few minutes later, you hear something like this:

“I should probably stop having wine every night.”

This one feels like a win, and it is. The change came from the client.  So the righting reflex wants to celebrate: “That would really help your sleep,” or move immediately into problem solving: “Try cutting back to weekends first.”  The first attaches a promise about the client’s body to the choice. The second takes the choice and turns it into your plan.

Here’s the reflection:

“You’re thinking it might be time to change that.”

No promise. No plan. The client’s own words, handed back, so they hear themselves say them. Who chose? The client did. Your job is to keep it that way.

Now a different client. This one mentions it almost in passing.

“My heart’s been racing at night.”

It’s been on and off for a few weeks. This time the reflex comes from two directions. The coach in you reflects it and moves on: “That sounds unsettling,” then back to the goal. The nurse in you names it: “That’s probably anxiety.”

The first is right as a first sentence, but wrong as the last one. The second decides what it is, but that isn’t yours to decide in a coaching conversation.

Here’s what you say:

“I’m glad you told me. I wouldn’t wait on that. It’s worth a call to your provider soon.”

Deciding how soon is assessment, and that part is yours. Deciding what it is belongs to the client’s provider. And if chest pain, fainting, or real trouble breathing had come up, you’re not coaching anymore. That’s 911.

A reflection isn’t a referral. Some things a client tells you, you don’t just hand back. You send them somewhere.

Here’s the part that ties it together. Motivational interviewing starts from the idea that your client is the expert on their own life. Your scope of practice asks the same thing of you, for a different reason: some choices aren’t yours to make in a coaching conversation. So the move that makes you a better coach is the same move that keeps you inside your license.

Leave the choice with the client.

The session ends, and you send a quick follow-up. Something like this:

“Great session today. Don’t forget to ask about getting your hormones checked.”

That’s the pause, filled in writing. And that’s hardest in writing, where nobody can ask you what you meant. The check I use for my own writing is free. It’s called the Three-Question Scope Check, and it tells you whether a sentence crosses the line before you hit send.

The open question is the easy part. What you say after it is where your license lives.