What is This Life Coaching Thing Anyway? (and Why I Have a Coach)

Life Coaching – fastest growing and maybe most misunderstood profession. We’ve talked about this. You can read my other blog here. I think people want to know though. They want to get what life coaching looks like and are curious if a life coach could help them. You may be curious if life coaching could help you.

Answer: It depends. It depends on so much.

Things that affect the success of Life Coaching:

                Rapport – Do you mesh with your life coach? This is so key that actual studies have been done on it. Let me sum it up this way: no rapport, virtually no success. You may find some victory without rapport, but I wouldn’t count on it. In fact, rapport can bring success even when the coach lacks skills. Rapport is the magic juice of coaching, in my humble opinion. The fairy dust. Rapport keeps you engaged with your coach, allows your coach to speak frankly with you, cuts through the muck and mire to find out what’s really going on.

                Trust – A little different than rapport but no less important. Trust gives you security and is based on the reliability of the coach. It allows you to explore areas that you’ve been hiding from yourself, speak the truth, know your coach will maintain confidentiality, and bring their best to the conversation, looking out for your best.

                Willingness to change – If you’re unwilling to change, well, nothing will change. That’s not completely true. Some things may change but they’ll be externally charged. A willingness to change puts you in the driver’s seat and helps you realize new victories and experiences.

                Vulnerability – With good rapport and trust, you feel secure in being vulnerable with your coach. When you’re willing to be vulnerable, you avail yourself to deeper coaching and, in my opinion, faster results.

                Transparency – Similar to vulnerability, but I’m putting this one on the coach. A coach shouldn’t be pouring their hearts out to their clients, but that doesn’t mean they should act inhuman. A transparent coach increases trust and rapport. Transparency helps the client feel understood and not so alone in their struggles.

Coaching can be understood by comparing it to counseling. Counseling primarily deals with the past and how it’s affecting the client today. As a result, counseling works a lot on past stories and events. In counseling, the counselor acts as an expert and advises the client/patient. Coaching is focused on the future. Coaches may explore your past, but it’s as you bring up things that are relevant to your goals, keeping you stuck. Coaches help release the hold past events have on you and help you see ways to operate beyond that story. Note: this is a very simplistic definition and is not intended to elevate one profession over the other. Coaches are not acting as the expert on a subject as much as a helper or ally. In coaching, the client sets the pace, determines their goals and how to measure them. The differences may be cloudy at times and certainly there are similarities, still they remain separate.

Do coaches have coaches?

Yes, though not always. Coaches may believe they don’t need a personal coach, but I can’t see how this serves clients best. Everyone has blind spots. Everyone has weaknesses. Everyone needs to be challenged at times in order to reach their potential, even highly motivated individuals. A coach can bring a much sharper game when they themselves are coached. As a coach, I can be just as easily caught up in limiting beliefs, fears, and small thinking as anyone. By submitting myself for coaching, I have help examining these issues so that each week I’m bringing my clients the best me possible at that time. (See how I’m being transparent here? I don’t have all the answers.)

Some things I’ve heard from my coach(es):

                I hear defiance.

I don’t think I’m being defiant.

                Have you tried centered breathing?

Nope. Haven’t specifically heard of it.

                Let’s go through a total truth letter.

Oh, boy! *feels nervous*

                Why are you judging that?

Didn’t realize I was.

                What are you pretending not to know?

Ummmm – huh?

One of my clients wrote an article about her coaching experience recently. She said that I “help her untie the brain knots”. I think that’s an excellent description of the coaching experience. I’m the other ears, the other eyes. I have a different perspective – and you’re safe with me.

Coaching By Stephanie