8 secrets to successful coaching

Meaningful change rarely happens overnight. Whether you're changing career, rediscovering your purpose or working towards a long-term goal, it's normal to experience uncertainty, setbacks and moments of self-doubt along the way. These eight coaching principles will help you develop the mindset, resilience and confidence needed to stay committed to your journey and create lasting change.

1. Think long term

Don’t fall into the trap of short-termism and talk about where you’ll be in 6 months. Sure, you’ll have clarity on where you are going and start to take action in some small ways, but that’s just the end of the beginning. Coaching is about laying the foundation for where you’ll be in 2, 4, 6 years from now and beyond. Putting it in context, your working life spans 50 years (yes, really). Taking a couple of years to change direction is a blip, a small detour. You will benefit hugely from thinking in years, not months.

2. Confusion before clarity

Nobody likes being confused, but within the fog of your confusion lies some answers. You don’t have to like the feeling, but you do have to accept it for a bit. Sit with the confusion, make peace with the feeling and recognise it’s part of the process of change. There is no around, only through.

3. Put the work in

Coaching alone will not get you over the finishing line. Coaching will not take away the need for hard work. Coaching will stop you procrastinating over getting stuck into the hard work of change.

4. Stop stressing

This isn’t life or death; nothing bad will happen to you. Think of finding your new direction as experimenting and playing. Playful brains are creative brains; creative brains come up with new ideas to solve old problems.

5. Stop looking for THE right path

There are many paths open to you if you choose to see them (it is 100% your choice). Some paths will give you back more than others; none will give you everything. Look inside yourself, get to know yourself and your values. Use that knowledge to help you decide which path(s) to investigate, not follow just yet. The first path may turn out to be a dead end, and some backtracking may be in order – remember you are experimenting.

6. Have more conversations

The answers you seek will come from a conversation, not a keyboard. Get out from behind your screen, stop communing with the Google Gods or AI Bots. These are great for information, but you want knowledge. People have knowledge. Yes, use technology to help you find the knowledgeable people – then meet them or call them.

7. Step outside your comfort zone

Accept that your goals lie outside your comfort zone. Commit to stepping outside that comfort zone every day; even dipping the smallest little toe in unfamiliar water builds confidence, and that’s what this is all about: confidence. You cannot think your way into a new confident you; you can only act your way into a new confident you by doing.

8. Expect the dip and keep going

Accept that 4 to 6 weeks in, you will feel overwhelmed and think it's all a waste of time (which is nothing by the way – see point 1). That you’re not going anywhere, nothing is changing. 98% of people fail here and accept their current unhappy reality (“better the devil you know”). Don’t be one of them. Before you set out on this journey, commit to being the 2%, not the 98%. When it gets tough, have a small wallow, then saddle up again, telling yourself I am the resilient 2%.