WHAT SHOULD YOU EXPECT FROM COACHING?

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The last module outlined why one should go to a coach and when a coach might be required. This module speaks to what you can expect from a coaching session.

Now you have realised that you’re in the need for a coach. Perhaps you have noticed that you’re stressed about certain professional milestones in your life and the stress is leaking into your personal relationships. Perhaps you feel unmotivated or burnt out and you want to seek a professional help alternative to therapy or mentorship. Coaching is unique in that the coach’s main role is to encourage change from within. They will help you identify the underlying reasons for all your symptoms and then present them back to you. You can use them as a sounding board as you work through your issues and ultimately move towards addressing and solving them.

Whilst a mentor or therapist may intervene and offer advice, a coach’s role is distinctly different. They act as amplifiers, using and rerouting your own resourcefulness and creativity back at you.

They will ask you pointed and powerful questions and then take your answers and dissect them with you patiently. It’s like having another team member to brainstorm with, only the project that you’re working on in this case is your own personal growth.

In the coaching field, we have identified trends and common issues that clients have come to us with. I’d like to present a few examples of those to you here, so you have a better idea of what we may be asked to help people with:

Chatter, otherwise known as the inner critic or the self-saboteur. Chatter can have profound affects on one’s inner psyche. It can be an asset or a liability. Many people have troubles regulating their inner critic and it spirals out of control, leading to anxiety, low self esteem and intrusive thoughts. It is not possible to silence one’s inner voice and honestly, it should not even be attempted, rather one’s inner spirit can be channelled to feed you constructive and motivating messages, thus empowering you as you tackle challenges in your professional and personal life.

A few other noteworthy examples of problems are people with rigid thought patterns that force them to resort to black or white, binary thinking, improper goal focus, willpower, and a variety of other situations.

People face a variety of obstacles when it comes to achieving their goals. As you talk about your life and the problems you are facing, a trained coach will notice, identify, and point out the presence of these obstacles. If this were compared to a surgical procedure, the coach would be the X-ray, scanning and pointing out possible abnormalities. You, being your own doctor, will then review these findings, identify possible solutions and then work to excise them.

In the previous module, we touched on the self-regulated theory of change. The theory of change outlines 5 different changes and then further elaborates on the processes within every stage. A coach, well versed in this subject, will help you learn what state of change you are in and the various methods that you might want to use to move through the stages in an effort to attain lasting and sustainable change.

There are two distinct ways that coaches are trained, two paths they can take: ACSTH and ACTP.