About coaching

The International Coaching Federation definition of Coaching:

The ICF adheres to a form of coaching that honours the client as the expert in his/her personal and/or professional life and believes that every client is creative, resourceful and whole. Standing on this foundations, the coach’s responsibility is to:

1.Discover, clarify, and align with what the client wants to achieve.
2. Encourage client self-discovery.
3. Elicit client- generated solutions and strategies.
4. Hold the client responsible and accountable.

Thus, professional coaching is an ongoing partnership that helps clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. Through the coaching process, clients deepen learning, improve their performance, and enhance their quality of life.

In each meeting, the client chooses the focus of conversation, while the coach listens and contributes observations and questions. This interaction creates clarity and moves the client into action. Coaching accelerates the clients progress by providing greater focus and awareness of choice. Coaching concentrates on where clients are today and what they are willing to do to get where they want to be tomorrow.

Coaching will focus on three aspects of the client: the personal core of the client, what they want and what they are willing to do or change to get what they want. The coach is not the leader, they are a partner , listener and client advocate. The client is the leader.

A Coach helps you clarify who you are, what your values are and what is needed to be true to yourself. If you are not true to your values, you create a disharmony within yourself. You decide if you are making life choices that are right for you, or if you are following societal trends. A coach helps you figure out what you need to do to be happy and balanced. A coach uses inquiry, reflection, requests and discussion to help you identify personal and/or business, so you can develop strategies, relationships and action plans intended to achieve those goals. A coach keeps you focused and works with you to redefine your goals and dreams. Your coach not only supports you, but helps push you to reach the goals you set for yourself. Your coach holds you accountable for the goals you set and the action plan you use to meet those goals.

Personal and Professional Coaching can help you in many areas of your life or career:

Identifying Self
Building self esteem
Moving on after loss
Dealing with mid life transitions
Living with life altering transitions
Having satisfying relationships
Living a healthier lifestyle
Getting organized
Finding a balance between work and home
Career satisfaction
Goal setting
Acquiring enhanced interpersonal skills
Dealing with difficult people
Finding funding and support
Building your business with ongoing support

Coaching is not counseling, mentoring, therapy or consulting!

Coaching helps recognize an individual’s ability to change, address issues, confront challenges and take action. The role of a coach is to bring these attributes to the surface at a time when they may not be apparent. Coaching involves forging a positive vision for the future and creating strategies for achieving specific life goals with an emphasis on action and accountability.

Counseling, and therapy, look into the past to determine how you got here. Like some forms of coaching, therapy or counseling are centered on healing with the focus often on the individual’s improved emotional state. They help you fix problems by working through issues you may have. Counseling, and therapy, tend to be used, but not limited to, issues of mental health. Coaching often includes some of these techniques, as required by the client, and the training of the coach. If clients have issues that coaching cannot help them work through, they are usually referred on to counseling or therapy.

Consulting considers the situation; tells you what you how to make changes. Consultants provided solutions and direction to deal with an issue or improve something. One tends to consult with someone who can tell them how to make changes to improve something. On occasion coaches are asked to function as consultants on their area of expertise.

Mentoring is when one person helping another person do what they do. Many coaches do mentor up and coming coaches, I have a few coaches that have been mentors to me and I mentor the occasional up and coming coach.