What I Wish I Knew About Coaching (Part 1)

But didn’t learn until I became a Certified Life Coach – Part 1

When I first came to coaching as a client

I had absolutely no idea how coaching was supposed to work, and no one really explained it to me.  I had enrolled in a program that counts macros and tracks fitness, and it was not cheap.  I only knew I wanted to lose weight and get more fit.

I had no idea that focusing on the actions, whether successes or failures, really had little to do with my long-term success.  Really (as I discovered much later), it had to do with exploring why my brain was continually okay with me eating above caloric needs and why I was exercising sporadically at best.

I showed up to my coaching sessions with a desire to please my coach with what I had done well (and hoping to avoid talking about what I had not done well).  I wanted an A+, a gold star.  I wanted and needed affirmation, whether I deserved it or not.

THIS WAS A MISTAKE, if I really wanted success.  I now know that dropping my guard and letting my coach in to what wasn’t working would have been the fastest route to the personal transformation I so deeply desired.

What I’ve learned since

Most clients come to coaching exactly this way: uninformed of what coaching is or how to best utilize it for themselves.  It’s messy.  Their thoughts are messy.  They have messy stories they really believe.  They have no idea what it’s supposed to look like. All they know is they just want results.  “Trying harder” just isn’t working anymore.  Still, they want to look good to their coach. This is not only normal, but also okay.

The coach must organize this “messy” and help the client create structure.  If we let the client’s stuff control the coaching session, we won’t get anywhere.  A life coach has been trained to ask questions to help you focus in on the most important things for you, one step at a time.  It will help you when you can agree that if your current thinking was working for you, you wouldn’t need coaching.  You have the power to make it easy for your coach to interject questions, or you can make it harder.  The more you create invitations for your coach to ask questions and guide you, the faster you will gain awareness.

If you are working with a good coach, he or she will help you focus and get on track with a system to work on your goals, step by step.  They will help you focus more on WHY you have created the results you currently have, so you can now discover the power to create the different results you so desire.