What is Coaching?

Just a few years ago the only people who hired professional coaches were in business. They hired business coaches to help them advance their careers in a systematic way.

Today the International Coaching Federation boasts over 14,000 members. The ICF is the organization that accredits coaches who have gone through certified training programs and passed certain qualifying exams. See their website at www.coachfederation.org.

Hiring a coach is a way for people to find encouragement and accountability from a professional who knows how to listen and motivate. People hire coaches to help them in relationships, to conquer shyness, to lose weight and for any number of reasons. Parent coaching is just one specialty within the coaching profession.

Psychologists work with correcting pathology. Coaches work with people who are already functioning but who want to move to the next level. Psychotherapy moves sick people to normalcy. Coaching moves people from ordinary to extraordinary. Psychotherapy looks backwards for origins of problems. Coaching looks forward to the realization of future goals.

Coaching also differs from consulting. Consultants are experts with all the answers. Coaches work with clients to help them find their own answers. When a client enters coaching, the coach assumes that the client is resourceful and can find his own solutions to any problems presented in coaching sessions.

Among the many reasons so many people today are hiring personal coaches include: 1. Coaching helps people set goals with a professional.
2. Coaching enables people to understand what “expert” information will work for them, and what won’t.
3. Coaching helps them achieve their goals faster.
4. Coaching helps people identify their strengths and use them.
5. Coaching means clients will make fewer mistakes on the way to achieving their goals.
6. Once goals are set, a coach holds each client accountable to perform tasks necessary to achieve goals.
7. Coaching can help people change course in life.
8. Coaches usually tell people outright when they are doing well and when they need improvement rather than waiting for clients to come up with such insights themselves.

The first coaching session is usually a long interview of the client. The coach must determine what exactly the client wants from the coaching process and how best to achieve it. Then coach and client set up sessions for regular intervals, which often take place over the telephone. The coach keeps the client on track and motivated to achievement of goals set in the beginning sessions.

Coaches are trained to listen with compassion and insight. They learn to ask the right questions and to reframe situations so that clients can gain new perspectives and insights.

The profession of coaching is expected to continue growing at an exponential rate in years to come. The reason is coaching is a 21st Century solution to keeping up with a 21st Century world that only keeps becoming only more and more complex.

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