Nowadays, coaching is becoming a big thing; there are so many courses, so many different types and so many people offering to coach. But what is it and why should it be something that everyone should consider?
SkillsYouNeed explains coaching as a “process that aims to improve performance and focuses on the ‘here and now’ rather than on the distant past or future”. They also explain that coaches are not always experts but are “a facilitator of learning” for the coachee.
Read more at: https://www.skillsyouneed.com/learn/coaching.html
“Studies conducted by the International Coaching Federation on the effectiveness of life coaching showed 99% of the people they interviewed saw their experience working with a life coach as rewarding, while 96% stated they would do it again. Moreover, 65% said working with a coach helped them improve their performance at work, and 80% said it helped improve their self-confidence”.
cited in https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/3-reasons-successful-professionals-hire-a-life-coach
There are many different types of coaches, some may only specialise in one area and others may work across different domains.
Types of coaching;
- Executive coaching – working with clients within a career setting, helping them to achieve more and make bolder decisions.
- Leadership coaching – working with clients in leadership positions helping them to run an effective team.
- Career coaching – supporting clients who may need to enhance their career or are finding it hard to decide on a career
- Team coaching – supporting client groups to get more out of themselves and colleagues they are working with.
- Business coaching – would be specific to a particular area and would help clients enable to get the most out of their business and employees.
- Systemic coaching – looks at the different people within a team and the whole team as one when coaching.
- Life coaching – is a form of coaching that helps you with different aspects of your life, this could include but isn’t limited to, career, health, relationships both personal and with family and friends, personal development, and how to better your life.
- Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) – is a form of coaching that helps you with enhancing performance, supporting the client to control their emotional state and stay focussed on what they want from life. It helps with restructuring the thinking of the brain in ways.
- Performance coaching – supporting the client to improve job skills and knowledge.
- Relationship coaching – can work with an individual or with a couple supporting them through challenges in their relationship and getting the most out of their relationship.
- Development coaching – focuses on uncovering the root of an issue or issues and developing tools to overcome these issues.
- Wellness or wellbeing coach – works with clients to assess their current physical and emotional state and set goals to achieve a better physical and mental wellbeing.
- Personal Development coach – is the same really as a life coach and helps clients achieve more from their lives.
- Parenting coach – works with parents who may be struggling with specific behaviours by giving them alternative ways to deal with situations or work on the parents’ personal development as a parent.
- Not to forget although very different but similar in ways a Sports Coach, who work with individuals or teams of people in a specific specialised area to enable the coachee to get the most out of their performance.
I am sure there are even more types of coaching that are emerging or have emerged that I haven’t even heard of yet. The thing with coaching is, it is something that we all do, supporting students as a teacher, in a sports team or as a parent to our children. So, what separates what we already know and do, with going to someone who is a coach?
Some characteristics of someone who is a good coach would include someone who is positive, supportive, encouraging, trusting, focused, and knowledgeable. They work with people to help support, encourage and challenge them, they won’t always and don’t have to be from a specific area of expertise, as they are a coach, not a mentor. For example, I could coach someone who is a CEO of an I.T. company and coach them very well but know little or nothing about I.T. Coaches are observant, non-judgemental, patient, a good communicator, can challenge what you say, and be adaptable to you.
As I have shown, technically anyone can call themselves a coach and be a coach. It is a very new stand-alone career. There is standardising bodies like the International Coaching Federation (ICF), that have standards that trainers and trainees have to meet to be certified by them. I am currently doing my training with an ICF awarded training centre, although I have skills and qualifications to already be a coach, I want to make sure I am able to give the people I work with the best I can and have the practical training with a recognised trainer and experienced coach. I believe it is important for people who are looking for a coach to look at the awarding body they have their qualifications with and ask questions so you get the best person for your time and money.
Anyway, I want to talk about my coaching journey to give you a better understanding of coaching, why I am working towards building my skill set and the world of coaching. I guess I was always interested in coaching from a young age, supporting others and spending years throughout school coaching different minor basketball teams. Although, as I had mentioned earlier, it is very different it still has some basic similar principles. I am an NLP practitioner certified by the National Federation of Neurolinguistic Psychology (NFNLP); I completed my training last year and it has re-framed my way of thinking and supporting people for the better. It has also helped me get over the breakdown of a relationship and use it to restructure my life. One of the most useful components from NLP that I have learned is how different words can impact how we may or may not achieve something. For working with people, figuring out what type of person they are, in relation to what language they hear, you can use this for their advantage.
It was my first certified training in coaching and although I really enjoyed it, I knew I wanted to go in a different angle or direction also. I spent lots of time trying to figure out what was the best training to pick and thanks to one of my friends, I was guided towards the ICF accredited training centres. With the lock-downs across the world, it has made it accessible for me to train and work at the same time. There is so much I have learned already and I am only partway through the training. During training you have to be able and open to sharing, you coach and are coached, while a trained professional assesses how you do and you also assess each other. Not in the role-playing form but real-life playing. I believe this is a really important part of the training because you need to be real when you coach someone, so you need to find where you may or may not be doing this correctly. To be an effective coach, you need to be able and open to being coached. The amazing thing about coaching, specifically being coached, even if you go in with a set goal to figure out, yes you may have the chance to figure it out, but so much more will become clearer that you did not realise was connected to it.
Coaching to me is about someone else guiding you to see things more clearly and in a different way to then enable you to achieve more. Do I feel everyone would benefit from a coach? Yes, I would. I am not saying this as it is something I hope to set up in the future as a business. Like your car, it runs fine, but if you service it regularly will it perform better? The answer is yes, it will.
I work supporting people every day and there is also an element of coaching in that, but as I have explained, coaching is good for everyone to get the best out of themselves. The same goes for the coach or anyone working with people, you need to always keep learning and looking at yourself to bring out the best in you for yourself and for others you work with. As I started my period of isolation from others in a way of keeping safe and keeping others safe from COVID-19, I vowed I would come out of this better off than I went in. So far, I have started this website and blog, learning German (which I do still struggle with but I will get there, I know I will), and my new coaching journey as a coach and coachee. Although we are still in this situation I already know I am going to come out a better version of myself in one way or another.
To recap as I gave a lot of information there, anyone can say they are a coach and even do a course online that takes 2 hours to complete, it is not a regulated profession yet like psychotherapy is but anyone that has gone through ICF training has met certain international standards, there are specific standards set out in different countries so there may be another awarding body that you can trust. I am living away from my home country and don’t know where in the world I will go next so felt it was best to go with an international recognised awarded training. This also means that I have had the face to face training, yes it has been via Zoom but it is still the same as if I was sitting with all the other participants in the group, it also means I have mentoring and assessed coaching sessions so I know I will be giving the people I will work with the best I can. It will take me a number of months to complete and get my accreditation with the ICF after completing 100 coaching hours after I qualify from my training.
I am excited about my summer ahead to continue learning and developing as a coach. I hope this post has been informative for you. If you ever want to know more about coaching or my journey, please leave me a message or a comment and I will get back to you as soon as I can.
