Coaching is hard work

How is your January going so far? As a business owner, I spent the closing weeks of the last decade thinking about business strategy and the year ahead. Talking with fellow business owners it’s fair to say that we probably never switch off from planning, strategising and setting intentions for both skills development and business direction. I share this thinking with some of my closest loved ones, who, after more than six years are probably tiring of hearing me wax lyrical about my baby (otherwise known as Transform and Thrive!).

I also share with a few trusted fellow business owners and my Thinking Partners. However, the most important sounding board for self-development and business planning is my coach.

I’ve written before about what coaching is and how to decide whether or not you are ready for coaching. I’m motivated today to write about both the challenge and joys of being coached and why we need to be fully engaged in that journey.  I’ve experienced something unusual, even for January; a time when we are suddenly thrown back into busy schedules full of demands from colleagues, clients and bosses. Six of my coaching clients booked in for this month have postponed their sessions. In one case the motivation to postpone was perfectly reasonable; my coachee is sadly unwell and needs time and space to recuperate. These things happen. Coaching needs energy, and my coachee has wisely decided to rebuild theirs. In all other postponed cases, the coachee simply felt they were too busy to have their session and they deprioritised it.

This is the first challenge of being coached; you will never feel you have enough time to have a coaching session! Who can afford 60minutes in a hectic week to devote purely to themselves? But what would be the risks to your personal and business development if you never carved out that precious time? The fact is, none of us believe we ever have enough time to do all the things that are important to us – and we’re probably right! As Greg McKeown writes in his book; Essentialism, the disciplined pursuit of less we constantly stretch ourselves too thin. In order to improve our wellbeing and productivity, we must make difficult choices about what we say yes to in life and work.

The second challenge of being a coachee is your coach expects you to do the work. Your coach is not a guru, magician or peddler of absolute truths. They are a flawed and fantastic human being, just like you. Your coach is an expert in coaching. You are the expert in you.

A coach does not advise or instruct – find a mentor if that is what you need. A coach creates a trusted, confidential and challenging space in which you can explore your goals, dreams, frustrations and realities and make sense of them in a way which resonates with your life, your strengths and the person you want to be. Together you create the magic!

Commitment – you need to show up for your sessions and you must do that regularly. Rarely does one coaching session fix, solve or instantly make the change you need. Habit formation is built on regularity and consistency. Science tells us that repeated and directed attention is the key to making change in our lives (check out this video for more about neuroplasticity). There will be 101 things you could be doing instead of your coaching session, but ask yourself; is the task I’m about to do, one which will create long-term value? Coaching offers the opportunity to create lasting change. That hour you protect every month methodically paves the way to the change you want to make in your life.

I meet my coach regularly throughout the year and the session takes up almost an entire day including travel. As any business owner knows, this is a big undertaking. However, knowing the date is diarised weeks in advance sharpens my focus and helps me plan my time. In the days coming up to the session I’m thinking about an agenda for discussion and reflecting on what I’ve achieved since the last time I worked with my coach. I’m also considering the difficulties and learning points I’ve experienced in that time – and I decide on which thorny issues are most pertinent to explore with my coach.

Check your assumptions; Working with a wonderful coachee recently (someone who always commits to their sessions), I was struck by one of their assumptions. It was a belief I too had many years ago before I became a professional coach and a long time before I engaged my own coach. The assumption was that coaching is a service needed only when things are tough or difficult, or when we don’t know which way to turn in our personal and professional lives. Whilst this is a perfectly legitimate motivation to seek coaching – it negates the fact that most successful leaders, managers, entrepreneurs and business owners appoint a coach (or variety of coaches) throughout their career. The more senior and time pressed we become in our careers, arguably the less frequently we gain honest feedback on our performance. Who will hold a mirror up to you when you become the most senior person in your business or you decide to go it alone as an entrepreneur? Who can you be vulnerable with, enabling you to explore deepest held beliefs and dreams without fear or risk to your position? Dr Brene Brown writes powerfully about the importance of vulnerability in leadership. There is no argument that exposing our flaws and mistakes is horribly hard to do, but we also know this is the only way we learn and grow. Are you ready for that level of powerful honesty?

So, my plea to you today is to give yourself permission to think and speak expansively and regularly with a professional listener who has no agenda other than to enable you to move forward. Commit fully to all that the coaching journey entails and set aside any unhelpful assumptions that might be holding you back from investing in much needed personal and business development time. With determination and a passion for your success and the impact that will have on those around you, you and your coach will leverage meaningful and lasting change together.

If this resonates with you, and to find out whether 1-2-1 coaching with me would be useful for you, get in touch to arrange a free 30 minute ‘chemistry exploration' consultation.