Announcing A New Tool for Learning the ICF Competencies

Learning the ICF Competencies can be tricky! This new tool will help you learn and anchor these fundamental concepts.

Maybe, like me, you were very familiar with the original eleven ICF competencies and found you had to shift your focus when the updated eight competencies arrived on the coaching scene.

As a mentor coach and ICF Assessor, I had to get on board fast to learn the competencies to be able to support coaches along their credential journey.

To teach something, you really do have to learn it yourself, right?

I don’t know about you, but I am an active learner. I have to get in there and work with a thing to learn it and really make it stick. Lectures and pages of written material don’t work well for me. I have to play.

That’s actually how I ended up creating this competency learning tool. I knew I had to learn the new competencies to run my mentor coaching groups and assess coach recordings. So, I did what I always do. I busted out the coloured markers, cue cards, scissors, tape, glitter glue stick and other fun stuff and got busy playing with the words and phrases.

Before too long, I had created two sets of flashcards and some sorting games that I could do in my spare time to anchor the concepts.

Once I’d worked with those for a while, I got itchy for something new. I decided to add a crossword puzzle to the mix and then a word search. That eventually got me thinking about other word games to create to add some variety to the learning, and pretty soon, I had a stack of them! Thirty-two, in fact!

That’s when it dawned on me that there might be other active learners out there who could also use this method to learn the ICF competencies. So I created a learning tool for coaches called How to Learn the ICF Competencies – 32 Fun Activities to Get You Started. Coaches started downloading the materials as soon as I launched the program.

I made it all into a digital download so it is easy to access and print all the materials at once or just a few.

If you are a coach on the ICF credentialing path and an active learner like me, this learning tool is something you will want to check out. You will be able to:

Make Your Learning Stick

One of the biggest obstacles to retaining your learning is a lack of frequency in working with the concepts.  The two educational flashcard decks in this toolkit address this challenge. All eight competencies and their behaviours are covered, and each card contains smaller pieces of valuable information to make the learning manageable. Using these cards in your learning sessions provides a tactile and interactive learning experience that enhances comprehension and retention.

Put Your Hands to Work

The card decks and the workbook are more than passive learning tools; they are designed to be thought-provoking and fun. From printing and organizing the material to completing the activities, you’ll interact with the content to help you get to know the fundamentals.

Play With the Workbook

The workbook provides an organized series of activities for learning the domains, competency definitions and behaviours, and it complements the flashcard deck. The workbook encourages active participation in the key concepts with thought-provoking exercises and practical activities.

Work at Your Own Pace

Professional development often takes a back seat to your work with paying clients. I get it! Too often, our own learning gets put off until there is a blank space on the calendar. Good luck with that! This tool evolved over time when I created it for my own use. The result is a flexible and convenient toolkit, allowing you to work at your own pace in whatever mode works best for you.

The card decks are small enough to travel with you. You can print them simply on paper or on heavy card stock. You can even get fancy and laminate the cards for heavy-duty use. The choice is yours. The workbook is an easy-to-print PDF. You can use a paper version. I have a tablet with the GoodNotes app, so I do the exercises repeatedly.

Credentialing is an investment in your professional development as a coach and is essential to leading the field in this industry. After all, you are helping your clients to learn and grow; it’s vital that you do the same!

These activities and exercises were super helpful for me. I hope they help you too!

Take a closer look at Learning the ICF Competencies – 32 Fun Activities to Get You Started