What is Coaching?

What is coaching? Coaching is where a person teams up with a professional coach in order to improve something in your life,( eg: increase self confidence, motivation, relationships, work, achieve a goal etc)

“To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe”
Anatole France - Nobel Prize in Literature 1921 (Pseudoynm for Jacques Anatole Thibault

You’re not alone if you find yourself in a situation you’re not happy with and, while you know you’d like to change it, you don’t know how to. This applies whether it’s your work, your relationships, your health, your living arrangements, or any other part of your life.

The fact is, if you COULD have changed it, you WOULD have changed it, but you may not know how to get started; you may have turned it over and over in your mind until you feel you’ve been going round in circles; you may be just too afraid to take the plunge! Whatever the reason, somehow you just aren’t able to do it by yourself.

Well, you don’t have to!

Whatever changes you want to make in your life, you’re more likely to achieve them with a little help from professional coaching. The coach is there to help you to develop your potential in the areas you want to make changes. All the top athletes, business men and women, and leaders in our society hire a professional coach in order to achieve the very best results possible. And now you can too!

So what is coaching? Well - the process begins with identifying exactly what you want to achieve and/or change – however precise or vague that may be at present. The coach will listen to you, without judging. He will encourage you, without imposing his own ideas or beliefs on you. He will help you to discover where your talents lie. He will inspire and support you. He will be interested in you, your thoughts, your ideas and your problems.

The coach will respect the values you hold; like a mirror he will reflect what he sees in you, in an honest and open way, always seeking to highlight your strengths and signalling when you’re failing to see them in yourself. In this way it will build your awareness of the strengths, skills and abilities you already have.

This will be a true partnership. The coach will ask questions that will help you to identify your desires, skills, strengths, resources, creative abilities (and yes, you do have them.) These questions will provoke thoughts and ideas that you can share with him. In this way, not only will you identify what you want to do, but you can also explore whether your goals are realistic for you and, if they are, define together how you can achieve them.

It’s a wonderful, liberating feeling to be truly listened to, to be taken seriously, to have someone concerned about your future and how you can make the changes that will result in you developing your potential and living a more satisfying personal and/or professional life.

Throughout the whole process, you will be in ‘the driving seat’. In other words, the coach is not there to tell you what to do, to impose his ideas on you or to deter you, rather he is there to help you to think through, give you ideas that you can consider then accept or reject, help you to identify resources – both your own and external ones – until you decide what action you want to take. He will then support and encourage you through that process, helping you to make any necessary adjustments along the way until you achieve a goal you’ve set.

In summary, good life coaching aims to help you achieve clarity and self -confidence, increase your skills and ultimately enable you to work through the issues that are holding you back, thus improving the quality of your life.

So what kind of issues might someone need help with? Well, the list could be extremely long and even then not cover the range, but here are a few examples just to give you some idea of what professional coaching can address:

• improving your performance
• achieving promotion 
• changing your work direction completely
• increasing motivation
• starting your own business
• improving your time management
• improving your relationships (e.g. with a partner, their family, a friend…)
• reviewing a current relationship
• improving your health generally
• improving certain aspects of your health
• reducing your feelings of stress and pressure
• attaining more energy
• being better organised
• having more self-confidence
• improving your health
• reducing weight
• improving your sporting performance

Oh – and just to re-assure you; while your purpose is undoubtedly very serious, it doesn’t mean that the coaching sessions have to always be ‘hand-across-the-forehead’, chest-beating and wailing (although of course, you can do that if you want to!) It can also be fun and enjoyable, in fact, almost like talking with a friend - but one who has an intense sense of purpose – your success!

So if you decide to undertake it, next time someone asks you “What is coaching” A good answer would be “Revealing, liberating, life-changing and FUN!”