In the part one of the Coaching as a differentiator instalment, I outlined four ways that we don’t reach our goals, because of how we are hard-wired to become distracted, disinterested and demotivated when we go it alone.
Now, let me share with you how coaching helped me and what you can expect from an effective coaching relationship.
My early coaching experience was as a trainee social worker. In this profession, they use supervision, as a way to ensure that the social worker has an opportunity to regularly discuss their caseload, their ideas about how to manage situations and more crucially their feelings surrounding their caseload. These conversations, whilst not truly coaching in the way we view it in a business environment, did help me understand how the right type of questions from my supervisor, helped me to gain perspective and problem solve issues that had been daunting. My supervisor was an experienced practitioner who was very skilled at facilitating my reflectiveness and giving me an objective viewpoint.
Fast forward 10 years, and I was the Chief Executive of a Charity supporting adults with Autism. The work was stressful, as many of our clients had challenging behaviour and I had a relatively young and inexperienced workforce to hone and develop. I sought an external coach to help me in much the same way my supervisor had been there for me in my early years. As well as the perspective and insight I had gained from my earlier experience, this coaching challenged me to dig deeper into my motivations and intentions; to really question my impact as a leader and whether I was always acting in the best interests of my organisation and myself. I have no doubt that I was a better Chief Executive because of it.
Since then I have employed a coach at various points in my career, to help me when I am ready to take my performance or my sights to a new level. Each time, I have benefited from perspectives and support that has accelerated my development in a way that my efforts alone could not.
What to expect from a great results-based coaching relationship.
A coach can help facilitate your thinking of your future vision in concrete terms. What does it look like, feel like, taste like and sound like when you have achieved this vision. The more real you can make it, the more likely you are to achieve it.
Then you need to have an honest review of your disappointments. What has not gone well over the last year and why? What of your behaviour, habits and beliefs has led you to these disappointments. We often struggle to be objective about our disappointments. We either dwell on them too much, that stifles our ability to move on, or we don’t dwell on them enough, greatly enhancing our chances of repeating them.
What happens in your coaching session, is that you can bring a sense of detachment to your disappointments and view them as just that; times when things did not go according to plan. The learning you can take from them, allows you to set more empowering beliefs on what you can achieve and how you can achieve it.
The last piece of the puzzle is action. Defining the steps you will take to achieve your vision. These are set down as monthly goals, that are in line with your principles, values and overarching goal. Through the regular coaching sessions, you can assess your progress, course correct and objectively measure your impact.
This kind of results-focused coaching has proven to bring about extraordinary results. Not only do clients achieve much higher results that they have ever achieved on their own (or with less goal orientated coaches), but they learn how to unlock their hidden talents, change their limiting beliefs, and stay committed to their course. These skills not only serve clients well through their time with their coach, but become life-long skills to improve all areas of their life.
Ask yourself, what could you achieve if you were to achieve your best year yet? And when you have an idea of what that looks like, consider what would you invest to make that happen?
If you are interested in making this happen, then let’s talk about how I can take you on a journey to reaching the extraordinary results of your best year ever. Email me or book a free initial consultation here