The Coach as Your Modern-Day Ally: How to Work With a Coach for Maximum Success
I mean, since we began to call it "coaching" in the mid-1980s, the profession has evolved to include many different approaches, styles, and methods. But what is coaching, really? Can't you just have a chat with a mate for free?
1. What is a coach and what do they do for their clients?
At its core, my work as a coach is about partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to unlock their personal and professional potential.
Our personal lives impact our professional lives. The two are intertwined. So my coaching conversations are very rarely purely about work.
Coaches bring a mix of skills to the table, but their most important asset is emotional intelligence. This allows them not only to understand what's going on inside your head - they'll be able to see it through fresh eyes and ask insightful questions to challenge that thinking.
Long story short, the best coaches provide tools, resources, and support alongside asking powerful questions that challenge clients to think differently and take action.
2. The benefits of having a coach
In my experience, some clients have felt a smidge self-indulgent for giving themselves permission to have an hour to talk about their goals, dreams, and life. In today's busy world, finding time for pause and reflection in a safe environment that's without judgement supports good mental well-being and promotes feelings of contentment.
Unlike family and friends who sometimes just tell us what we want to hear (rather than what we need to hear), a coach is formally (with a signed agreement) committed and dedicated to your success, using proven techniques to assist you in getting there, and will always (not just most of the time) speak the truth to and challenge you when you could most benefit from it.
Coaches enhance and complement existing relationships by facilitating conversations that help you:
Have time for you - because so few of us do this enough.
Focus on subject areas and associated goals that are meaningful to you.
Identify and gently challenge any assumptions and limiting beliefs that are holding you back.
Develop actionable plans to hold you accountable to taking action steps to move forward.
Feel supported, encouraged and motivated.
3. How to find the right coach for you
Not all coaches are created equal and the barrier to entry is low because it's an unregulated industry. Blurgh. For that reason, it was vitally important to me to train with a professional organised that had direct links to the International Coaching Federation - a membership organisation for professionally trained coaches who agree to abide by a code of ethics and standards.
The ICF has a Coach Finder tool which is a directory of coaches around the world (yes, I am proudly listed). Although location is less of a factor in our virtual world, and the vast majority of my sessions are via Zoom.
Beyond their commitment to you, coaches bring objective attitudes: emotional intelligence, ferocious listening skills, proven psychological techniques, people smarts, and, if you hire right, a sense of humour. 🙃 So the best place to always start is a discovery call - I mean, you're going to be having deep and meaningful conversations with this person so you want to know that you get on and can trust them, right?
4. What to expect from your coaching relationship
Coaches are experts in the process - that's the methodology of asking powerful questions to help you clarify your values, and identify your goals as well as what blocks them.
A coach is not the expert on you - you are.
When working with a coach, you can expect to:
🎯Set concrete goals and develop an action plan to achieve them.
💪Receive accountability to keep you on track to make progress.
💡Be challenged to think differently about your situation and take action outside of your comfort zone. Spoiler alert: we can spot the speech patterns that signal avoidance, resignation and defeatism. We can also shine a light on assumptions getting in your way of success.
🪟Access to new resources and discover fresh perspectives.
5. Questions to ask yourself now to get the most out of your coaching experience
As coaches, we know that people are fundamentally creative and resourceful; our job is to show you how to tap into that creativity and those (perhaps hidden or quietened) resources. Here are some questions to reflect on:
What makes now the right time for coaching?
Thinking about specific goals, what do you want to be different at the end of one hour together? Six hours together?
How realistic is that based on what's going on in your life right now?
On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being not at all committed and 10 being both feet in, how committed are you to those goals?
Less than an 8? What needs to happen for you to inch further up that scale?
Ready to explore coaching?
If you’re curious about what coaching could help you achieve, why not book a discovery chat with me to see if it’s right for you? No pressure, commitment or obligation. Just a conversation about where you are versus where you want to be and how we can bridge that gap.