As much as you might think coaching is an exclusive service only accessible to the lofty executive and management sector – it is not.
Coaching is for anyone who has a desire, a dream or seeks direction. It is an open-ended support system that can serve in so many ways beyond the boardroom. Coaching deserves to be more visible, more straightforward and simple for people to comprehend – its obscurity isn’t helping those who need to know its benefits most.
Like any personal service – it varies with the provider. Few massage therapists give identical massages; few pedicures look identical, few haircuts are the same experience: it depends on who you engage with and how you are treated that makes the encounter unique. So it is with coaching. Just as you might shop-around for a masseuse/masseur, esthetician, hairdresser or barber – so should you check out a variety of coaches. Although many train in similar techniques, the personality and approach of each one makes for a different practice.
My style of coaching is multi-facetted. I am trained in the work of Alan Seale from the Center for Transformational Presence and I have also trained in mainstream coaching techniques through CTI. I have a signature way of coaching that blends an awareness of many different leadership methods with my coaching practice. It is a personal-based way of working that builds on what you know and what works for you and then adds inspiration and concrete actions that will move your ideal forward. It isn’t always as easy as spinning out a SMART goal – that’s very hard to do if you have no idea what you want to produce as an end product. Rather, working with me is like unveiling what has been “there” but not quite visible to you for awhile. Perhaps you’ve never had or taken the time to ponder what playing bigger, or dreaming more, or nestling into… would look like. That’s what working with me is like: it has nothing to do with business practices unless you choose it to. It might just as well be about holding onto your own identity within a new relationship or role, balancing work and home life, finding your way through a new stage of life: marriage, divorce, empty nesting or retirement perhaps. Or something entirely unique to you. That’s the point – coaching is personal.
Coaching is not a medical therapy. It is a process of conversation that allows for creative, clear decision-making and affirmative action. Many consider it as a time apart from family and friends, for objective personal growth. It’s a place and time that someone else can hold for you to talk out-loud, bounce ideas and test new boundaries without judgment. In my practice I routinely engage in presence-based awareness exercises like relaxation, guided visualization, journalling exercises and experiential learning activities. At all times – the choice to participate is the client’s. My role is simply to facilitate a process that allows for awareness to surface and whatever becomes known to begin to unfold – often we have no idea what that is, from the beginning.
And so, with “arms open wide” I invite you to step into a coaching conversation. Start with a kernel of something that could be different, has possibility for you, that you want to explore and then put it on the table for discussion. You will know soon enough what is important to you, by how you make time for this process and the actions you create to move it along. I challenge you to call – I would welcome the invitation to coach with you.
What do you know about coaching; what would you like to know? What’s worth going out on a limb for?
Photo Credit: Natalie Collins