Beyond Yes or No: 40 Open-Ended Questions for Better Health Coaching Conversations

The questions you ask shape the conversations you have. Closed questions lead to short answers and surface-level engagement. Open-ended questions invite exploration, reflection, and deeper connection.

Here are 40 open-ended questions organized by purpose for your health coaching conversations.

Questions for Exploring Goals

• •What does success look like for you?
• •If you achieved this goal, what would be different in your life?
• •What's drawing you toward making this change now?
• •How do you see this fitting into your bigger vision for your life?
• •What would make this feel worthwhile?
• •When you imagine your healthiest self, what do you see?
• •What would achieving this allow you to do that you can't do now?

Questions for Understanding Motivation

• •What matters most to you about making this change?
• •Why is this important to you at this point in your life?
• •What values does this goal connect to?
• •Who else would benefit if you made this change?
• •What would you lose if you stayed exactly where you are?
• •What's the cost of not making a change?
• •How does this goal align with who you want to be?

Questions for Exploring Barriers

• •What typically gets in the way when you try to make this change?
• •What's the hardest part about this for you?
• •What would need to be different for this to feel easier?
• •What have you tried before, and what happened?
• •What do you think is really going on beneath the surface?
• •What fears come up when you think about making this change?

Questions for Building Confidence

• •What gives you confidence that you could do this if you decided to?
• •What strengths do you have that could help you here?
• •When have you successfully made changes in the past? What worked?
• •What resources do you have that you might not be fully using?
• •Who in your life supports this goal?
• •What's one thing you're already doing well in this area?

Questions for Creating Action

• •What's one small step you could take this week?
• •What would need to happen for you to get started?
• •If you did take action, when and where would you do it?
• •What might get in the way, and how would you handle it?
• •On a scale of 1-10, how confident are you that you'll follow through?
• •What would make you more confident?

Questions for Reflection and Learning

• •What did you learn from that experience?
• •What surprised you about how things went?
• •If you could do it again, what would you do differently?
• •What are you most proud of from this week?
• •How has your thinking about this changed?
• •What insight will you carry forward?

Questions for Deepening the Conversation

• •What else?
• •Tell me more about that.
• •What do you mean when you say...?
• •What's underneath that?
• •How so?
• •And what's important about that?

The Art of the Follow-Up Question

Sometimes the most powerful question is simply inviting elaboration on what they just said. When clients share something significant, resist the urge to move on. Stay with it.

"You mentioned feeling overwhelmed. Say more about that."

"I noticed you paused when you said that. What was happening there?"

Making Questions Feel Natural

These questions work best when they emerge organically from the conversation—not when they feel like they're being read from a list. The key is to:

• •Truly listen to what your client is saying
• •Get curious about what you don't yet understand
• •Let your genuine interest guide your questions

With practice, powerful questioning becomes second nature.