Curious about coaching

Sometimes it’s not obvious why we feel stuck, overwhelmed, or unable to move forward, especially when life becomes busy and noisy. Many people spend years focusing on responsibilities, routines, and expectations without ever pausing to ask themselves what they truly want or what might need to change. Coaching creates the space for those conversations. It offers an opportunity to reflect, challenge old patterns, gain clarity, and reconnect with your own direction in a supportive and constructive way.

Seeing beyond the noise

Coaching is an accepted word now, but how many people really know what it is?

Coaching is a confidential one-to-one relationship with a professional coach who will work with you to clarify your goals and help you determine how best to achieve them.

It sounds simple, and indeed it is. However, in this increasingly busy world, very few people have time to stop for long enough to reflect or “see the wood for the trees”. This can result in people getting stuck in a rut, repeating the same mistakes, having a poor work/life balance and feeling out of control.

Coaching is about many things, principally it is about behavioural change that benefits the individual at home and at work and the results that they achieve.

The conversations that create change

Coaching is not therapy or counselling. A coach will have faith in you, listen to what you say and also what you don’t say. The best coaches will challenge your thinking with questions to encourage deeper self-awareness.

They should be flexible and able to offer tools or models where appropriate to help you explore your personality, thinking or business problems. The agenda is always yours, and you should always feel that you have been truly heard, although you may have had to work hard along the way.

At the start of the session, your coach will want to know what your objective is for that session and at the end, you will agree on the actions that you intend to take.

You are accountable and responsible for both objectives and actions. Your coach will act as a catalyst for your conscience, that is all.

This sounds easy, but many people find this extremely challenging, and if you don’t feel ready to take responsibility for your behaviours and results, then coaching may not be suitable for you, yet.

The good news is that this process is extremely empowering, and if you do embrace the process with open arms, the results are swift and powerful.

Growth begins with awareness

Sessions will usually be an hour to an hour and a half in duration, approximately every two weeks and may be on the phone, via email, face to face or a mix of all three over a programme.

Support, challenge and accountability

Making the most of coaching

Be open and honest with yourself and your coach. We all have things that demand our time and can readily absorb our time and energy. This coaching time is yours, working purely on you and what it is that you want to achieve.

Make time and space. If you are feeling stressed or disorganised for the session, you will get less from it. You will get the most out of this investment if you make the time to study and follow through on what you agreed to do between sessions.

Speak up. Immediately tell your coach if they could be more effective in some way and/or if you have a problem with the coaching process.

Reflect afterwards. Consider allowing fifteen minutes after the coaching session to write down and record anything that occurred to you, and plan the time to follow through on commitments made to yourself.

Keeping notes during the sessions will assist in recording your conscious thoughts and improve your awareness of any shifts in your thinking during the sessions.

Invest in a journal to keep notes from the sessions. There will be things that you want to come back to at some point, and they will serve as a reference point for the learning and growth you experience.

What real coaching relationships look like

Ethics and standards

Your coach should conduct themselves with dignity, honesty, integrity and responsibility.

Participants are assured that anything they discuss with their coach will remain confidential, unless required by law, or the participant gives permission in writing.

Professional coaches will not:

• Be judgemental
• Give unwelcome advice

Professional coaches will:

• Be clear about the boundary between coaching and other therapies, such as counselling
• Recommend other coaches if it is more appropriate for the client
• Treat all clients in a way that is respectful of people’s differences in relation to disability, gender, age, race, religion and sexual orientation

Trusting the process

What to expect from your coach

As your coach, I make the following commitments to you:

• I will believe in you and your ability to achieve your aims
• I will stretch you, challenge you and sometimes confront you, but always from a supportive position of service
• I will be warm to you, laugh with you and travel with you as an equal partner in your own success journey
• I will be honest, open and non-judgemental
• I will help you to achieve all that you can be, as long as you stay true to your own best interests
• My specific purpose is to get you to where you want to be faster than you would do on your own
• Everything that passes between us will stay confidential, and I will always stand within the standards and ethics of a professional coach
• You are always in charge of the action steps you commit to between sessions

If I challenge you to do something extra at some point, you always have the following options:

• You can say “no”
• You can say “yes”
• You can negotiate the request up or down

Be assured that I will be ready for our scheduled meetings, relaxed and fully present without any of my own circumstances clouding my mind.

What your coach expects from you

• To make the time necessary to get the most out of your coaching
• To prepare for sessions by thinking about what you want to achieve
• To be physically ready for meetings or calls
• To commit to following through with the actions you choose to take between sessions
• To be open to new challenges and prepared to stretch yourself to achieve them
• To be open and honest with yourself and your coach
• To let your coach know straight away if anything about the coaching relationship bothers you or is not working as well as it could
• To take ownership and responsibility for the decisions and actions that you take