More About Coaching

There are many types of coaching: 

• Life coaching
• Business/Career coaching
• Empowerment/Confidence coaching
• Wellness coaching
• Transition coaching
• Performance coaching

Coaches market our services based on what we feel passionate about, and what we are most skilled at, based on our unique experiences. Coaches often specialize and have a niche.  Some approach it like a General Practitioner does in the medical world.  While many med students end up specializing in one field, others look forward to serving in a more generalized way, to enjoy the variety that is inherent with that type of practice.  Since general principles of coaching traverse all niches, many coaches want to fluidly move with our clients across your personal and professional lives, dropping in however you need our help. 

Coaches are looking to fulfill your needs, and to deliver a valuable service that helps you.  It’s about matching up our offerings and personalities with the right client, to yield a powerful result. There are lots of coaches, and as is said, ‘there’s a lid for every pot’.  It’s about finding the right fit.

As you can imagine, clients have vastly different views of coaching, anywhere from straightforward reach-your-goal coaching, to a motivational and tight accountability relationship, to a “just tell me how to do what I’m trying to do” arrangement  (which is really mentoring or consulting, and many of us offer this, along with coaching): and some even use coaching as a safe and open listening space to regularly process things.

The role of a coach in the purest sense is to understand what you, the client, wants to accomplish (specific goals, or exploring an area of life that you want to gain clarity on or improve upon), and then work together with you to uncover the best of what you have within yourself, to reach your objectives or find answers.  If you need more than what you personally have to draw upon, some coaches help by providing additional solutions (I am a coach who offers consulting and mentoring in addition to classic coaching, as the three are a powerful combination for achieving results). 

It’s a journey for you, as you gain self-awareness, clearly identify your values, strengths and weaknesses, rekindle your passions, gain confidence and motivation, brainstorm ideas/solutions and refine those into the best possible ones, then set a plan, and achieve it. The accountability style is client-based, and the coach tailors that to what you need and want. 

Solutions achieved through coaching tend to be very empowering, as they are arrived at from the most authentic, uniquely knowledgeable place within.  With a skilled coach to help you, you are able to achieve more effective, sustainable solutions.   As you can probably see, it’s not a situation where larger problems are solved in one session. That is why it genuinely takes some time to get through a complex issue or a goal, but the process can be powerful and transformative.  If you have a simpler issue,  that can be done in one session, and that’s why lots of people use coaching on a weekly basis to solve ongoing problems as a way to keep life running smoothly.

Hopefully this sheds some additional light on the different aspects of coaching.