I’m often asked 'What is coaching?' 'Can coaching help me?' 'How does coaching work?' And if I think it would benefit someone. I often find myself a bit lost for words, which is unlike me, but the truth is there’s no easy answer to that. In the moment most people don’t have the time to spend on rummaging about in it too deeply so I thought I’d attempt to unpack it a bit here. Perhaps I could make it into pamphlet I could hand it out next time.
When it comes to ‘what coaching is’ I’m not always sure if people really want to know what it is as much as they just want to know if it can fix their problem, because after all no one ever came to me asking for coaching because their life was currently going really well. When people come for coaching, they are often at a somewhat low ebb, out of ideas and just looking for a solution.
I’m a coach so of course I’m going to say everyone can benefit from coaching, but the truth is that I became a coach because I think everyone can benefit from coaching. I also became a coach because I have personally experienced the great benefits of having had some wonderful coaches in my life.
Seeking change
I think we can all agree that having someone to talk to is good for our mental health and thankfully there’s a great deal more awareness of this now than there’s ever been. Sharing our thoughts and feelings with a trusted other be it a friend, colleague, therapist or indeed a coach is a proven way of relieving stress, depression, feelings of isolation and promoting wellbeing, connectedness and resilience and that’s before they’ve even said anything back.
Unfortunately though, when it comes to both our physical and mental health we can often tend to leave it until we are at crisis point until we take action and even then, there can sometimes be an internal reluctance to make that move towards another for help. For me it was always some idea of failing. I should be able to deal with this on my own. Maybe I could get back on track before anyone had to know I was struggling.
Crisis Point
What often leads us to "give in" in the end though and finally seek help is when we feel as if we’ve exhausted all of our own ideas and the change we want feels so necessary that seeing if someone else has any better ideas begins to look like a more viable option.
Although it doesn’t sound ideal, this can in fact be a great place to start from because we can be tough cookie’s on the whole. It can take a bit of a battering before we agree to try something different.
The change we want or need can often require that we begin to see and do things that feel outside of our normal comfort zone, which doesn’t always feel like it’s going to be much fun, so we tend to avoid it. Over time we can convince ourself that it wasn’t so bad really and drift back into apathy until the issue becomes overwhelming again or we just find that life is still not looking much like the brochure promised.
So what about Coaching?
Coaching has become quite fashionable over recent years. Perhaps one of the reasons is because it’s not called therapy. Although in its own way it is a form of therapy because it can bring about great relief and healing.
I believe another reason coaching is beginning to take such a stronghold is because it tends to meet us as and where we are today and show us how we can move forwards from here rather than delving back into what can often be painful memories of the past. What we must be clear about though is that coaching is not Therapy in the conventional sense.
Having said that, I have also worked with some wonderful therapists over the years as part of my healing journey and if it’s therapy we need then we should seek therapy. We tend to know…
Choosing wisely
When we are choosing a coach, it’s really important to understand that just as there are different modalities and styles in therapy, so too there are in coaching, and aligning ourself with the right coach for our needs is pretty important if we are going to get the most out of the time we dedicate and the money we invest.
For example there’s little value in choosing a performance coach if your objective is to work on your relationship issues. Choosing a coach with a grounding in the spiritual if you are a confirmed materialist is likely to cause added resistance at the potentially tricky moments, that you don’t need. So time taken to evaluate your needs and expectations as clearly as you can in order to select an appropriate coach is key to a better chance of receiving value on your investments.
As an aside, I’ve always thought it’s a bit like recommendations from friends or acquaintances regarding films or restaurants. Although well-meaning they come from that person’s own idea of what works for them and can be missing regard for who they’re being offered to… It might be the best restaurant a vegetarian ever went to, but I’m not a vegetarian so when I get there... You see where I’m coming from...
Investment
Investment can be viewed from two angles. Firstly our investment of self into the program or project. The willingness to bring an open mind, to flirt with the idea of seeing things totally differently than you ever have, and a belief that meaningful change is possible for us as an individual, despite on occasions what looks like quite compelling evidence to the contrary.
Second is financial investment. The fees that professional coaching commands these days often astounds me, and this seems to be the way of it. However, when evaluating this it’s useful to remember that a great coach will have spent many hours dedicated to becoming that great coach, in the form of taking expensive courses, gaining qualifications, committing the time and often bravery to address their own inner work, understanding of life and personal healing, hours of free coaching initially in order to gain experience and most importantly a great coach will have an undeniable love of what they do that you can literally feel, and a selfless dedication to facilitating YOU.
There are not many places in life where we can freely take the time for it to be all about non-other than ‘Me’. If I believe that coaching really has the capacity to change my life for the better forever then what price do I put on that?
Expectation and Reality
I think the expectation when we embark on a coaching journey varies from person to person but I find that the most common misconception people have of coaching is that for their investment they will ultimately end up receiving some kind of opinion or advice on their problem or situation. Talking it over is nice an’ all but in the end. ‘What shall I do!?’
If we come across a coach who tells us what we should be doing, then right there we can be sure we are not being coached. Receiving someone else’s ideas can feel like a solution and bring instant relief in the moment but it will always be short lived and almost never facilitates any insight or long-term transformation for the coachee.
Sometimes when we discover that we aren’t going to get advice or solutions we can feel a bit miffed. After all I’m here because I’d run out of my own ideas, right? Wrong. You are here because you thought you’d run out of your own ideas.
The reality is that you had just reached your current limit on where you knew to look. The beauty of a great coach is that they know this. Where you think you are limited, they know you are infinite. Where you imagine you are less, they point you to where you have always been more. Where you experience that you are confined and choiceless, they orientate you to your freedom. Where you feel confusion, they show you where your innate wisdom and clarity can be found. This is the language of transformation.
Transformation
When we start working with a coach it’s usually because we want to make some kind of change. Often, with some guidance and if we are willing and committed, we’re able to make positive changes to our specific life circumstances, or behaviours, but change doesn't necessarily equate to transformation. Let’s look more closely at that…
Levels of Coaching
1. There are what could be described as three levels of coaching. At the level of behaviour, I might want to change my daily habit of eating sweets into one of eating fruit instead. I might learn some strategies in order to help me do that and success! At this point my desire or perceived need to eat sweets hasn’t really reduced though.
I can want to achieve a goal and get help with thinking of ideas or actions that will motivate me specifically towards that particular goal, devise steps I could take to help me arrive there and when this goal is reached, it’s job done. Evidence of success is that the change has happened. I did the thing. I got the job, I won the race, I lost the weight etc...
2. The next level of change can be facilitated by manipulating the content of our thoughts a bit. Developing more awareness of them, exchanging one thought for another one perhaps. A negative for a positive one for example. We might begin to look into how our thoughts and beliefs affect our behaviours and relationships from a slightly deeper level.
We might gain greater more long- lasting insight into ourselves as a whole, which in turn begins to ripple through other areas of our life. Hence we are now straying into transformative territory as we begin to see that what we think really affects our life. This has a slightly more transformative nature to it as we begin to see that what we think and believe has real meaningful influence over our life experiences.
3. The deepest level of transformation comes as we begin have the willingness to see ourself not only from the viewpoint of our singular existence in isolation, but also from the orientation of what is true for all of us. The focus then turns to how our minds work rather than just what’s rattling around inside them.
At this point we become no longer quite so concerned with the content of our thoughts but more the mechanics of our mind as a whole and how this might be affecting our experience of life. As we begin to understand more about the workings of ‘a mind’ we can then return again to the more personal by way of applying this new found understanding to ourself and any personal life situation we find ourself in.
As these realisations begin to be experienced as insight rather than just understood intellectually there is always a positive and meaningful shift for us. It always ‘works’ and brings relief because it is rooted in what’s indisputable and true for us all. Our body and mind always begins to respond to this with a quietening down and a relaxation because it is in alignment with our true nature. From this place we begin to think more clearly, respond more wisely and relate to others more fruitfully.
This is when it starts looking like pretty good value to me, because from this place we can go out again into life from a whole new creative perspective, which starts looking pretty different in terms of hope and possibility.
At the end of the day, that’s what we all want isn’t it? The feeling of hope and possibility, because from this place we are energised to go forth into the world with the universal ‘oomph’ this gives us to create and do what whatever it is we know to do next.
So is coaching for you? I don’t know... But you do.
Maxine Kemp is a transformative life coach based in East Suffolk UK who is dedicated to simplifying and demystifying the journey to greater peace well-being and empowerment.
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