Personal SWOT online

What is a personal SWOT analysis?

SWOT is an analysis tool that organises a situation into four quadrants: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It was born in business strategy, but in coaching it is widely used for personal and professional decisions: changing jobs, starting a business, choosing a course or launching a project.

If you work with CoachPro Tools, you can bring this work into the session with the platform's interactive tools, record what the client discovers in Live Session Notes and pick it up again from their client record and client space. You will find the step-by-step process below.

The key is separating the internal from the external. Strengths and weaknesses depend on the person; opportunities and threats come from the environment. Mixing them up is the most common mistake.

The four quadrants

Strengths

What the person does well: their resources, experience and qualities. They are internal and can be used to their advantage.

Weaknesses

What they lack or what holds them back: skills to develop, scarce resources, unhelpful habits. They are also internal, which is why they can be worked on.

Opportunities

What the environment offers: trends, contacts, demand, favourable timing. They are external: they do not depend on the person, but they can be seized.

Threats

What in the environment puts the goal at risk: competition, market changes, lack of support. They do not depend on the person either, but they can be prepared for.

How to use it with your clients in CoachPro Tools

This free version lets you try the exercise. In CoachPro Tools you have the Personal SWOT Analysis to work through with your clients: from the client record you choose it and assign it to that client.

During the session. Complete it with the client live, in person or by sharing your screen in the platform's video call, and note in Live Session Notes the strengths and opportunities they want to use, the risks they see and the first step they choose.

Afterwards. Save the result, download the PDF and it stays in the history of their client record. If you share it, the client sees it in their client space alongside the actions you agreed on.

Between sessions. The client tells you in the Client Log how they are progressing with that first step. In the next session you open their client record and pick up from there.

You agree a six-session process with a client. In the first session you review their goal and note it in Live Session Notes from their client record. You share the tool in their client space so they can complete it before the session. From there you focus on the coaching: every session has its appointment in the calendar, its video call, its notes and the tools you work on together live. The client sees what you agreed and their actions in their client space, and writes to you in the Client Log between sessions. You see each client's whole process in one place, from first contact to closing, without jumping between apps.

It works the same whether you do life, executive, team or wellbeing coaching: you prepare each session from the client record, work through the interactive tools live and follow up between sessions on the same coaching platform.

What matters happens in the sessions. With your client you work live on the Wheel of Life, S.M.A.R.T. goals, values, limiting beliefs or emotional management, and every tool is saved with its date in their client record. That way you arrive at each session knowing what you worked on, what you agreed and which actions they completed, and the client experiences an organised process from start to finish.

From snapshot to strategy: the crosses

A SWOT without crosses is just a snapshot. The step that turns it into a plan is combining each internal factor with an external one. This idea is known as the TOWS matrix, proposed by Heinz Weihrich in 1982, and it yields four types of strategy:

• Leverage (S + O): use a strength to seize an opportunity.
• Defend (S + T): use a strength to face a threat.
• Reinforce (W + O): fix a weakness in order to seize an opportunity.
• Protect (W + T): reduce a weakness so a threat does not hit.

How to do a personal SWOT, step by step

1. Define the decision. A SWOT works for something concrete, not for “my life in general”.
2. Fill the quadrants. 3 to 5 specific points per quadrant.
3. Weigh each point. Not everything matters equally: mark what has most influence.
4. Look at the balance. Does what works for you or against you weigh more, inside and outside?
5. Cross. Combine internal and external factors to draw strategies.
6. Choose one. The strategy to start with this week.

In CoachPro Tools, write down in Live Session Notes the client's exact words: they stay in their client record for the next session.

Powerful questions for each quadrant

If the client wants to keep working on it between sessions, share the tool in their client space and ask them to tell you in the Client Log how it went.

Common mistakes

• Confusing internal and external. “There is a lot of competition” is a threat, not a weakness.
• Vague points. “I am hard-working” says little; “I meet deadlines even under pressure” says more.
• Stopping at the list. Without crosses and a strategy, a SWOT changes nothing.
• Not prioritising. Giving everything the same weight hides what really matters.

Frequently asked questions