What is Coaching?

 Why Coaching Matters

Have you ever been led awake at 3am in the morning contemplating life? That’s usually the time that those questions pop into our head. How do I change my career? How can I lead a healthier lifestyle and still enjoy my life? How do I meet ‘The One’? How do I make time for myself when I have no spare time? These questions are ones many of us grapple with, but finding the answers can feel overwhelming without support. Coaching is a collaborative process that helps you uncover your own answers to life’s burning questions, leading to a more fulfilled and purposeful life. But what exactly is coaching?

 What Coaching Is (And What It’s Not)

Coaching is a partnership between a coach and a client. The coach has a non-directive approach, they support the client to solve their own problems. They do this through a variety of techniques such as summarising, asking curious questions, providing challenge and encouraging the client to see things from a different perspective in a non-judgmental space. The client holds their issue and their actions, which empowers them to think and act for themselves. Coaching works on the premise that we all know the answers to our problems deep down and by working with a coach, the client can work out their own solution and be challenged to create a way forward for themselves.

Coaching is not therapy, although it can be therapeutic! Where therapy can focus on the past, coaching focuses on the present and the future. And coaching definitely does not tell you what to do, it is not about giving you advice or coming up with possible solutions for the client. A skilled coach will support a client by facilitating. They will provide the space to work through those problems and facilitate a deeper level of thinking through active listening and responding with curious, and at times challenging, questions.

How Coaching Works

Typically, coaching involves 4-6 sessions over a few months, giving you the space and time to reflect, take action, and see real progress. Each session focuses on your goals: where you are now, where you want to be, and how to overcome the barriers in between.

The Transformational Effects of Coaching

Coaching can support you to develop:

• Clarity – understand what you truly want in life
• Confidence – building self-belief and silencing self-doubt
• Direction – creating a clear, actionable roadmap for change
• Empowerment – realising you have the tools to thrive
• Balance – learning to prioritise yourself and set healthy boundaries.

For example, on my own coaching journey, I gained confidence in myself. I realised how much I sought permission before taking action. Until I was running my own business, it was something I had honestly never realised I did and once I recognised it, I was able to take more decisive action than I ever had before! One of my clients felt she had come out of her sessions “as a different woman”, recognising that she needed to find her voice and in the end, feeling like someone had “turned my light back on”.

How To Know If You’re Ready For Coaching

Coaching has huge benefits for those who are:

• Stuck in a particular area of their life and not sure what their next steps are
• Overwhelmed or burned out and wanting to take back control
• Ready to make a change in their life and needing a plan of action
• Searching for fulfillment
• Eager to become better versions of themselves.

If you’re nodding along to any of these, then coaching could be the life-changing step you have been searching for!