How many times have you vowed to change something in your life? How many times have you said “this time it's going to be different”? Have you ever stopped to realize that your life today is a result of the choices you've made up until now?
“Our chief want in life is somebody who will make us do what we can.”
According to the International Coach Federation,
Most people believe that hard work and doing it on your own are the keys to finding the life, success, money or happiness they seek. They believe that a price must be paid to attain what they want and often the price is poor health, not having enough time to enjoy life, strained family relationships or lessened productivity. The trap is that even though the effort may result in more of something, it is often not the something you had in mind, and you are back where you started, or worse, further from your real intentions.
Self help books, workshops and seminars charge you up but the feelings are often short-lived. Life becomes demanding and pretty soon, you can't even remember what you heard in the seminar.
In it's simplest definition, coaching is an on-going relationship that helps clients achieve results and sustain life-changing behaviour in their lives and careers.
But here's the real juice: Imagine working with someone who has ceaseless curiosity about who you are and what you really want out of life—someone who will help you remember your vision even when life gets out of control.
Coaching is about encouragement and helping you to discover opportunity in adversity. Coaching helps you to find the best solutions—your own. Coaching is not about “fixing.” It's about helping you to replace your “shoulds” with your “wants” and your problems with your possibilities. Your coach is your partner along the pathway to your best life.
“Coaching requires readiness and commitment and a little bit of courage.”
Where counseling may focus on healing old emotional wounds, coaching focuses on present life and plans for the future. Counseling focuses on issue resolution, coaching focuses on life design. Counseling is more discussion oriented. Coaching is more action oriented. Counseling takes clients from dysfunctional to functional. Coaching takes clients from functional to extraordinary.
Coaching started almost twenty years ago when Thomas Leonard, a San Francisco accountant, was asked by two clients to join a discussion—not about taxes or estate planning—but about their lives. Among the questions on the table: should they have children and what colour BMW should they buy? Leonard called himself a life planner until 1988 when another client said he was like a coach. Leonard scoured the dictionary in search of a better term for what he did and could not find one.
Nancy Koehn, a business historian at the Harvard Business School, says “every entrepreneur I've ever studied has had something like a life coach. They just weren't called that.”
70–80% of coaches work with their clients over the phone. This separation creates a more thoughtful and reflective space for the client to stretch a little farther and take bigger risks—fuel for change. Furthermore, most clients have little time. Telephone sessions negate travel time; a half-hour telephone session can be seamlessly woven into a busy schedule. Finally, coaching over the phone avoids any logistical barriers. Coaches and clients don't need to be in the same city.
Coaching consists of several types of sessions:
Discovery Session—the coaching relationship typically kicks off with a 2-hour meeting designed to build the foundation for the coaching relationship, set goals and discover as much as possible about each client—what gets them stuck, what motivates them.
Regular Coaching Sessions—typically once per week for half an hour at a regular appointment time. Preparation forms help clients get focused before a call. Clients are given weekly “homework” assignments designed to further their learning and forward their action—both integral components of coaching.
Focus Sessions—held on a regular basis to insure that client goals set during the Discovery Session are being met.
Completion Session—the final coaching session of the relationship is designed to reflect on everything the client has accomplished and learned during the relationship. It's also an opportunity to look at ways the client can set up structures for themselves to continue their forward momentum on their own.
If you've answered “yes” to any of these questions, you've already demonstrated good self-awareness. If you can combine that awareness with a desire for change, you are an excellent candidate for coaching.