Deb Brown, Life Changes Coach
debrown@solutionsfactory.com
Coaching is a partnership and like all partnerships a mission and a vision statement can clear the path toward the future. The mission is to work together, coach and client, to shift the client’s behavior through goal-setting and action plans. The vision is to co-create an environment that is guided by unconditional respect and advocacy for the client’s self-determination. Coaching can help people stop dreaming about their life’s goals and start living their dreams. A coach remains outwardly judgment-free and inwardly accepting of people.
More specifically, coaching is building enough trust with a person so he will allow the coach the privilege to walk along with him and help him discover where he wants to go in his life and how he wants to get there. Coaching is not therapy, consulting or friendship. If the coach comes up with answers, those answers belong to the coach, not the client. A coach can’t tell someone else’s story – that’s the person’s job. Coaches do little teaching and advice-giving unless directly asked by the client and even then the process works best if the coach can turn the client’s questions back so they can seek their own answers within. Using questions like, “What are the options – let’s list them.”, or “Have you ever been faced with anything like this before?”, or “Did someone you sought out for advice in the past help?” are useful. Guided meditations to look at the client’s intuition about their situation are also extremely helpful. When the person starts to discover her story and where she is going, her self-esteem and self-coaching ability will improve. She will need all the confidence she can muster from finding her own answers for the beautiful journey ahead. And when people build confidence their chance of success increases.
We can’t change our history as coaches but before we come to the coaching experience we have a responsibility to understand the gaps between our beliefs and our behaviors so we don’t bring our issues into the coaching conversation. We are responsible for that understanding but similarly those who come to us are responsible for theirs. They know their own way, deep down, and they will find it eventually by dedicating time and energy to thinking about the answers to the good questions a coach asks. So, if a person continues saying, “I don’t know what the answer is”, this is grist for the coaching mill.
Coaching is a bridge. On the one side of the gap is the present and on the other side is the future. We build the bridge together. Unlike therapy, the coach doesn’t presume to know more about the person than she knows about herself. There is no big book to look up a list of symptoms to discover a diagnosis. The coach will never be the expert in someone else’s life. Coaches won’t talk too much about the past except to gather history that is relevant for the person to move forward. If a person states she always felt insecure as a child, the coach might ask, “How can we explore a way for you to feel secure now?” The past cannot be changed and we can’t live there. If a person says, “I’ve wasted my 20′s”, the implication might be that if he continues doing the same things, he will waste his 30′s. He with his coach’s help will need to discover a way to stop doing the same things so he does not find himself in his 40′s saying, “I’ve wasted my 30′s.” The way in which we help people understand more about themselves in order that they may create a more peaceful path is the art of good coaching.
What I like to tell potential clients is: I can help people going through life changes find hope during the transition and a more peaceful life when they come out the other side.
Peace to you. Deb B.
