10 reasons to work with a [great] coach

I know that there is still a little confusion about what coaching is and how it can help.

So here it is, my Coaching 101.

What is Coaching?

Coaching is a collaborative, goal-oriented process that helps you maximise your personal and professional potential. It helps you work out who you are, where you want to be and how to get there. And then it holds you accountable in making it all happen.

Why would you get coaching?

There are heaps of reasons to work with a great, evidence-based coach. Here are my top ten:

1 Solutions

Clients often come to me saying they’ve done some really useful therapeutic work, they’ve developed some great personal insights but now they don’t know what to do, to make their life as great as they know it can be.

Making sense of and reconciling past experiences is incredibly valuable [and often essential] work but without a next step, you can find yourself feeling frustrated.

Coaching is terrifically practical and empowering – you always leave a session with heaps of stuff to do on your own, to keep you moving.

2 Accountability

Sometimes, when you’re making great stuff happen, you need someone to keep you on track.

My ultimate aim [even after just a few sessions] is to have you operating independently, accountable to only you! But I totally get that in those initial stages, until you start believing in yourself again, it can be useful to have someone checking in and making sure you’re doing what you said you were going to.

I can be that person.

3 Ideas

When you’re feeling stuck and you want life to be better you can find yourself going around and around in circles, thinking the same stale ideas and doing the same old stuff.

As an evidence-based coach, I introduce fresh thoughts, offer bold strategies and design practical tasks – to shift your perspective and get you achieving.

4 Feedback

Positive change requires feedback; without it you lose motivation and your progress stalls.

In order to get to where you want to be, you need to see how you’re moving, how far you’ve come, and how far you have to go. Great evidence-based coaching offers you a whole heap of innovative ideas for gauging progress and keeping you on track.

5 Competence

In order to improve your life, you need to believe that you’re capable of making positive change. That seems obvious but many people I meet have lost hope in their own ability to create the shifts they’re looking for.

Effective evidence-based coaching strategies will boost your sense of capacity and so facilitate achievement.

6 Insight

Some coaching focuses exclusively on goals and actions and that’s ok. The just-do-differently approach can yield impressive short-term results. But without a change in thinking, those shifts can be difficult to maintain longer-term.

I prefer the evidence-based understanding that sustained practical change requires and is supported by strong internal adjustments.

Great coaching encourages you to see differently so you can start doing differently.

7 Space

So many of the inspiring women I work with have incredibly busy lives, often involving a great deal of time and energy spent meeting the needs of the people around them.

An hour in my quiet, light-filled office is an opportunity for space and time – to sit and think and explore and exhale and decide and…just be.

8 Support

It is incredibly tricky [I would almost say impossible] to effect incredible change without strong support. Most people have someone in their lives who believes in them but often those people are busy themselves or they’re a little biased or speaking to them just doesn’t feel right.

A great coach will be your ultimate champion! Believing in you all the way, recognising your strengths and talents, identifying your resources and cheering your big successes.

9 Theory

Coaching is currently an unregulated industry, which means that anyone can say they’re a coach and just start practicing; I think that is scary.

Great coaching is evidence-based. Rather than just suggesting you do what her best-friend’s-sister’s-mother-in-law did to get through a similar situation, a top coach will draw on her theoretical knowledge to help you get where you want to go.

I strongly suggest checking a coach’s credentials before you start work together.

10 Fun

Not all coaching is fun – I know that some is deadly serious. But I can’t think of anything worse [well I can, but you get the point…] Whatever you’re aiming for, if the process is infused with joy and curiosity and courage and humour and energy then the end result is far more likely to look and feel that way too. And to me, that is incredibly important.

If you have any questions at all about coaching generally or about the way that I coach, please do be in touch. I would love to have a chat.

Tags: life-coaching, Melbourne