Why should I hire a coach?

You're here because you're interested in hiring a coach, but unless you have had an experience of coaching, or know others who have had coaching themselves, it can feel a bit unfamiliar, strange, even, and you may be not 100% sure that you need a coach. For me, there is just ONE reason why you should hire a coach, and if this doesn't apply to you, you can probably stop looking for coaches right now.

The ONE reason why you should hire a coach is because you need support to make a change. You may know exactly the change you’d like to make, you may have a vague idea, or you might not know at all. Believe me, that latter one is the most common! You just know that something needs to change. Don’t let that put you off engaging a coach. A coach will help you gain a great deal of clarity in what you want and why it matters so much to you. Let’s break that down.

Support

What does that mean? A cheerleader, someone in your corner. Someone who can challenge you, who gives you insight, who reflects back what you’ve said, and who encourages you to engage in meaningful reflection yourself. It is not someone who tells you what to do, not someone to be the expert. You're the expert on you. It's someone who holds you accountable to your actions and helps you figure out why you're not taking action, or what to do when it doesn't go the way that you're expecting. Your chief supporter helps you figure out what might get in the way of your action and how best to counter that.

To make

You are going to do the action. Your coach isn’t going to do it. And it is an action. Otherwise, it’s just good chat. Coaches want you to do things between sessions. They may not be things other people can see - they may all be in your head - such as actively thinking of alternative ways of responding to someone, but it is work. You’ve got to be prepared to do that work between sessions or you are just wasting your money and your time. I've had plenty of clients that didn't put work in between the sessions and they didn't make the change they wanted. It doesn't matter how great your coach is if you're not prepared to put in the work! It’s not going to be easy. If it was, you would have done it already. But it’s not unachievable. You can do this.

Change

You have to be ready for change. Not just the change that you will make but the change of circumstances that brings. Sometimes you will find the way others respond to you changes. Often it's a great change, but I’ll be honest, it’s not always comfortable. When you become confident in asking others to treat you based on your own valuation of your worth, some people can find that threatening. A good coach will support you through these changes but you have to really want it.