What is Coaching?
Coaching is often about understanding how we hold ourselves back.
It is realizing what we want for ourselves and working towards it. Coaching allows people to reflect on themselves, their goals, and what they want on a day-to-day basis. A coach is ultimately there to listen; but, they are also there to enable people to think about things from a new perspective by simply asking questions that make you look inward and help you understand your way of thinking, acting, or perceiving the world.
Coaching is a beautiful thing! It is a unique, fulfilling partnership between a coach and a client where goals are set for each session. Certain topics may take several sessions to dissect the underlying drivers, but essentially you will make gradual steps toward your goals — consciously and unconsciously. When you are engaged in coaching sessions, new awareness should be uncovered from within.
This awareness happens when a coach asks powerful questions that we don’t know we should be asking ourselves.
I always like to think of this as writing. Imagine, you write an article and have edited it multiple times yourself. Then, you hand it to a peer to review and they find 5 missing commas and a fragmented sentence. How did you not see it?
Once they point out the items to edit, it is clear what you need to do. When we become too close to something, like an article you wrote, it is hard to see anything else but your original intention. In coaching, the coach will hear what you are saying and ask you about the things you can’t inherently see yourself. They will bring to light what you didn’t see because you can’t see things when they are that close to you. And, this is totally normal!
Tag in your coach here. They actively listen, hold your agenda, ask thought-provoking questions, and create a space where you can set goals. Change starts by looking inside and figuring out things like, “Why am I so afraid of this?”, “What is holding me back?”, “What is true here?”, “What story did I tell myself?”… and more.
How to choose a coach
I’d be remiss if I didn’t spend some time explaining how to choose a coach. Understanding what you are paying for is so important. Not all coaches are created equal — credentials, personality, or fit.
Credentials
Unfortunately, coaching is a bit unregulated. What does that mean for the consumer? Well, you could have anyone claim today that they are a coach. And that is that! In my mind, this leads to a bit of a horror show. Could you imagine people claiming to be surgeons without going to medical school? Does your stomach drop at the thought of that like mine? Ick.
Anyway, there is some regulation in coaching but you have to know what you are looking for. There are National Board Certification credentialed (NBC-HWC) coaches. This certification is focused on health and wellness, and it is a United States examination process. There is also the International Coaching Federation (ICF). It is the most known worldwide for coaching credentials! There are three levels of certification (ACC, PCC, MCC), depending on the hours of coaching completed and continuing education.
Check for credentials and not self-proclaimed coaches. It means they have been trained, educated, and agree to hold to a standard of ethics.
Personality
Book a discovery session! You don’t know if you will “vibe” with your coach unless you meet them first. This is imperative. If the coach you want to hire isn’t “humorous” and you need that for it to work, the coaching relationship will not be as fruitful as it could be if you found the right person for you.
Those discovery sessions are for both people to figure out if the coaching relationship is worth pursuing. Some coaches are more about feelings and others are more direct. Some lean into visioning exercises and others don’t. What personality would you best gel with?
It is worth figuring out and honoring your needs because the coaching sessions are for you, and you need to be comfortable there.
Fit
What are you wanting to work on? What does the coach typically focus on? Any coach should be able to coach any topic, but we do have our specialities or things that spark interest for us too. Hiring a health and wellness coach when you want to work on building better relationships at work, for example, might not be the best fit. Also know, that a coach may not openly broadcast everything they coach either. So, if their website resonates with you, reach out and see.
Usually, discovery calls don’t cost anything because it is important for both people to see there is chemistry there (some do charge here). For instance, I’ve held director-level roles in previous jobs and could help with leadership and executive coaching, but you’ll notice it isn’t on my website as the main focal point. And, that was a choice I made to honor what I wanted to put out there. It doesn’t mean I won’t ever take on an Executive coaching client.
Be upfront with what you are looking for, and the coach should be too.
Referrals
If it is not a fit, but you know exactly what you are looking for — ask that coach for a referral. The coaching community is a supportive group of people, and a good coach knows when to refer you to someone that will be a better fit for you.
Only you can decide if you are ready to try out coaching for the first time or maybe try a new coaching style for a better fit. I’m here if you need me. Happy to chat my dears!
Click here to schedule a time for us to connect.
