Why Coaching? Reasons to reach out

Why Coaching? Reasons to reach out

I work with people, creating group learning environments, where as part of a group they can bring on a conscious level their behavioural patterns, explore the costs and the benefits of certain behaviours and they can act to change the respective behaviour if they find it possible and meaningful to do so. Naturally, working with people sometimes arises: “Would you be available to coach me?”. And - since individual coaching is part of the program frame that I offer - I hear the following questions as well: “What is coaching?” “Is coaching therapy?” “Is coaching of any use?” “Isn’t coaching just a waste of money?” Working as a program designer, trainer and facilitator, with consultancy & coaching experiences I see how impactful coaching can be for somebody - while I also have to state that I have experienced also coaching processes, where the experience wasn’t that successful or impactful.?

I decided to write this post so that I can collect in one (short) read why I consider coaching to be a meaningful experience on our road to self-discovery and self-understanding. First things first: coaching is not therapy or anything that has to do with professional help in the dimension of mental health - although it can have a therapeutic effect. I had clients who stated that their experience during the training course was more impactful than months and years of therapy. This can be, but coaching is not designed to help with mental health issues. If it does, it can be attributed to multiple factors, which I cannot enumerate here, because they are context-dependent and vary from individual to individual. At the same time, a therapy session can contain elements from coaching - coaching and therapy can be combined, but one has to be conscious of the prioritization of the dynamics between them. I would like to share with you, what is coaching for me and how I work, when I am coaching, but first I want to enumerate the reasons that stand for having a coaching experience when it makes sense.

1. Coaching is not a friendship experience?

I pointed out the difference between therapy and coaching specifically so that I can talk about an interesting phenomenon: the friendship-expectation. People who want to be coached often expect a non-therapy process with the therapy experience. They expect that you as a coach disagree with them, but not too much, just enough so that they can feel that they are seen and heard and they are right, whatever the coaching question or topic is. Usually those, who come with this expectation get surprised by the experience. Coaching is not about whether you are right or not. The coach is not your friend.?

Whether you like it or not: friendship is biased and political. Friends who know you and appreciate you, who love you usually tend to take your side no matter the circumstances. This is why friends are for - to be seen, to be heard, to be loved and appreciated, and to offer them back this experience of love and appreciation. So you can imagine, when a situation arises where somehow there is a me vs the world setup, they will pick your side always. A coach would act differently. The coach doesn’t take your side, what he cares about is that you make a step towards the answer to your question, a step towards the solution of your challenge. Coaches work as they are, they all have a style, and it is often an art form in itself - and through their way of working with you, you are exposed to a new approach, a new trial and possibly a new way of succeeding.

1. Patterns made visible

Coaching is just a more mindful way of seeing things as they are, unravelling behavioural patterns, value connotations and peculiar connections made in your brain between things of which you were not aware. This is normal: some behaviours can be easily spotted in other people, and it takes a lot of energy and dedication to identify in ourselves, and also the source of it. This should not be underrated - our life is guided by patterns. We like to think that we are free in our decisions, but we are often conditioned for certain decisions, and these decisions create habits, that will eventually define our life and our perception of life.

If you are more aware of your habits, patterns and values, just this awareness can make some of the challenging patterns disappear. In other cases, you can establish an action plan of what to do, so that certain habits, values, and patterns change in the direction you desire to. The coach is there to offer you support and guidance in unravelling these hidden features of yours, in a way that he offers you the space to work on it - him supporting you in the process. If the coach works instead of you, you should change the coach - he became too attached to solving your issue.?

1. The coach doesn’t care

Of course they care - I just wanted to write here a catchy title. Coaches care, but they also practice something which is called professional love. They care about you less as a friend and more as a teacher who knows that through discovery the child learns best. Don’t worry: coaches don’t perceive clients as children, because in my example the teacher knows already, what the child is yet to discover. A coach knows that he doesn’t know the solution to your challenge - but he also knows, that he doesn’t have to. His task is to offer you ways so that you can take one step towards solving your issue, and another step, and another.?

This is why he should not have any desire to solve your issue: if he has invested interest, he can become blind to your process of discovery, focusing exclusively on the outcome. This is more harmful than you would think since the journey of discovering the solution is partially the guarantee that the same issue won’t pop up in your life again: in the process of discovery you understand what has happened for the issue to come to existence, and also ways of avoiding it to pop up again. As a coach, I am dedicated to offering support for their journey of discovery, but for me, it matters little, what the outcome is of this journey. This is a conscious decision, and not always the easiest. Whenever a client says that they feel happy with the outcome of the coaching: my job is done.?

1. It is about you, not about the coach

This also helps the coach to focus on you. When you are a client, the coaching session is about you, not the coach. There might be input coming from the coach, personal examples, feelings, and personal approaches, yet in the end, their only purpose is to support your learning and self-discovery journey, until the point when you are satisfied.?

It often makes sense that once you established how many sessions you will have, somewhere midway the coach checks in with you: does this work for you, do you miss something, you feel the need for more of this and less of that, etc. And, if the coach sees that your coaching journey doesn’t go well with him, he even can say: we should stop, this doesn’t work. I can recommend you other coaches, you should try them out, we are not a good match at the moment. This takes maturity: if something doesn’t work, you should stop doing it. I love the Netherlands for this caring, direct and honest attitude.?

1. Coaching is perspective

Through the coaching meetings, you will gain perspective. People reach out to coaches when they have something in their lives, that needs to be sorted out, but they cannot do it alone, or they want to sort it out faster.?

You have your way of doing things and that is great. But now and then there will be moments when you feel stuck in a decision. That is the time when one of the options is to reach out to a coach. By trying out the tools and the methods of the coach, you have the chance to explore new ways of doing things, of finding a solution, or of making a decision. Sometimes it will resonate with you, other times it won’t. What is important is that you want to solve something unsolvable for the moment - until you find the right solution for it.?

If you do find a new solution it is thanks to you, not the coach: you chose to explore new ways, that eventually lead to the success of your decision. Well done!

1. Coaching is a reality check

Coaching is not like a friendship-experience, because it is also a chance for a reality check. You have the chance through the perspective that the coach is offering for you and through the questions that are coming from the coach to check: is my understanding of the world still valid, or it does need an update??

Sometimes these reality checks can be even uncomfortable: it can become a wake-up call and it can shake one up by realizing what is there compared to what the client thinks is there. For example: a father realizes that he has become a father, and as a father, he has new responsibilities, and these new responsibilities require a different attitude, with a whole new set of behaviours. For some, this could sound obvious, but for others, this takes time to sink in. With the help of a coach, this sinking-in process can be sped up, by exposing ourselves to the perspective of a professional.?

1. Coaching is an investment

Coaching is not for everyone and not at any time. I believe we can sort out our things in our ways, we do not necessarily need the help in this process. However it takes a level of awareness and intelligence to understand that if the process of sorting out things can be sped up considerably, it is worth the investment, especially since it is a package deal: you get perspective, ways of facing challenges that work, you get a reality check and the feedback of a person who is not your friend, but a dedicated professional to support you on your way of making life more meaningful and easy. This is why it is also not cheap: offering such an experience takes years of learning, development and a conscious understanding of how can a coach support his client in the best way possible.?

For me, the coaching process aims to offer perspective to the coachee to create a movement towards the desired goal. Whenever I support someone, I am fully available for the time being. I need to work based on trust: trust the client that he knows best, trust in me, the coach, that whatever I do I do it to serve the client and all together: to trust the coaching process, from the very beginning.?

*Reach out if you feel like embarking on a coaching journey with me. It doesn’t take more than a call to check if we are compatible with each other - and I appreciate meaningful cooperation. You can also reach out if you would like tips on where to find a good coach, that fits your needs.?

#coaching #coachingwhy #connect2change #meaningfulcoaching #nonformaleducation #learningbeyondlearning #learningbeyond