"My Coaching Journey" by Laura Hamidova

Everything began in summer 2020 when the global pandemic ruined many lives, and everyone was lost in this chaotic environment.

At that moment my company also lost tons of opportunities in the business, because most of the business was concentrated on corporate clients, small and big companies. All training was offline, all job interviews we conducted were offline, all consultancy projects were offline. And at one moment all these just simply disappeared. No training anymore, no teambuilding events, and no need for recruiters or consultants. And what are we supposed to do? How to handle it? What to say to the team?? What can we do now as a company to survive? A lot of frustration and uncertainty, right?

And then, I heard this song…

Everything began one evening when I heard a new song by Jon Bon Jovi that says: “If you can’t do what you do, just do what you can do”. It was an eye-opening moment for me, and I told to me instead of focusing on what you can’t do just focus on what you can (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh6ctK7ONo0). And that something what “I can do” was working with individuals instead of working with companies. Yes, people took my priority, not corporates! I was starting seriously to think about how we can work with individuals to bring them value.

What specifically people are looking for during lockdown when there are no summer holidays, travels, entertainment outside? And for me, the answer was so clear.

People now have unique opportunities which they never had before because they were busy either with work routine or with annual family leave. People now can spend some time re-thinking their careers. Now, they have an opportunity to re-design and re-shape their work.

“By just doing what they simply can do at that specific moment they now have a chance to make the biggest change in their lives”

A week later, we already had 32 participants for our “Individual Career Coaching” program from our very respectful client in the Banking Industry and more than 15 non-corporate clients. By only figuring out what we “can do” when we can’t do what we usually do my coaching journey began.

I need to say that I am very happy and have no regrets to take coaching training by L-CON Global and by the way my participation and especially how I started my coaching study also has its own story. It happened very unplanned, and very suddenly. One evening, after my kids slept, I started doing research about coaching and specifically about ICF Credentials. I was searching for information about how to become an ICF certified coach. And I was checking the online different programs by accredited training providers from different countries and suddenly found information about L-CON Global on ICF Lithuania’s web page.

I get familiar with the training program, however noticed that the program starts tomorrow and now it is 10 pm. I got upset but still decided to write a direct email to them asking them to contact me urgently tomorrow morning. I positively was surprised to receive a call from L-CON Global at 8.30 a.m. in the  morning. That is how my journey related to coaching studies began.

“Sometimes the best decisions emerge not with planning and analysing but with spontaneity”

Now about what I have learned during the studies and how my perceptions about coaching were changing.

From the very first training session with experienced trainers, I have realized that what I have done before was more mentoring rather than coaching. And for me, the hardest part was to differentiate them from each other. How to stop being a mentor and start being a coach. Meanwhile, my professional trainer’s background was not helping me here, moreover, in the beginning it was dominating and ruining my client’s potential and resources.

“You need to unlearn to learn new things”

What I really learned from the very first session is that with every module, I was learning more and more in terms of new coaching techniques, ICF competencies, emotional aspects of coaching, and in general tips and tricks of coaching.

I need to say that my biggest perception about coaching was that coaching is when you give good advice to your client. But very soon I understood that this is the last truth about coaching. A good coach never gives advice! Instead of giving advice, a good coach needs to see every client as a source of resources. A good coach supports the client in an eye-opening journey. Moreover, a good coach truly believes that the client never needs advice.

After I understood this, I understood one more thing. Who am I to give advice or to believe that I know more than my client? And if I am not giving advice or not supposed to teach my client, it means I am not responsible for the outcome.

“Client and only client is responsible for his/her own success”

My next perception about coaching was about the level of tiredness during my coaching session that the coach usually has. At the very beginning of my coaching journey, after I ended my session, I was so tired that I was not willing to talk even to kids. The only thing I was doing with great pleasure after my coaching day finished is staying in silence. At the end of each session, my client was full of energy and felt recharged and I was full of emptiness.

At some point, I asked myself: “If the coach at the gym is not tired then why the coach in the “office” needs to be tired? Isn’t this amazing if you will be able to re-direct your energy from talking to asking and listening?

“Sometimes less is more”

Now about my clients. I realized one very important thing about coaching. I realized that we as coaches also have a choice. It is not only clients who choose coaches but and coaches have a right to choose. Let me share one small story. During coaching studies, we were coaching each other, and once I had the client with whom I had three coaching sessions and whom I was not able to understand till the end of all three sessions. I had very mixed feelings, like anger, anxiety, stupidness, meaninglessness. Those words can characterize these three sessions. I was feeling very useless as a coach. At the same time, I was thinking about what this client wants to achieve? Does she really know what she wants to talk about? If she can’t form a clear message how I am supposed to help her in this journey? Honestly, I was sweetening during our online meetings.

Later, during my studies, I learned that if the coach doesn’t feel comfortable, he/she can reject to work with the client. I didn’t know that I have the right to choose. Generally, in my life I used to do even those things that I don’t like, but that I still need to do. So, my mistake was that I applied the same to the coaching process. This case taught me one important lesson.

You may have an impression that I’m only complaining. It is not like this. I’m very grateful for all my studies, for all my openings towards coaching, for all opportunities to coach other program participants. I am very grateful for the amazing feedback I have received after each session conducted. I was so happy when my clients were saying that our meeting was very useful, and they are leaving with some outcome. And the outcome shouldn’t be necessarily something tangible. It also can be just “a thought”. Sometimes a good thought can make a much bigger ripple effect than any tangible tool.

If I would do a self-assessment as a coach, I would love to mention the things that I stopped doing and started doing during and after my studies.

I stopped doing as a coach:

?  Giving advise

?  Teaching

?  Judging

?  Being a parent

?  Working

I started doing as a coach:

?  Asking good questions

?  Listening more

?  Trusting client more

?  Seeing client’s potential

?  Relaxing

I still don’t know how and where I will be using my coaching skills. Maybe it will be the new page in my career, maybe it will be the skills that I will be using in my personal life to better understand people and to build better relationships. No matter which direction I will go, I want to make it right and ethical. I want my coaching to be aligned with the ICF Code of Ethics and ICF Competency Model because I am a person who believes in ethics and justice.

What I promise to myself is never to misuse the coaching, whether it is manipulating the client or disclosing confidential information to third parties.

Coaching is much more than consultancy or training. It is the floor where everyone who is on it, blindly trusts each other. And here we don’t have the right to misuse the most precious we have- the client’s TRUST!

Thank you for reading!

Laura