What can a coach do for me?

If advice alone was enough, you’d already have the results. You would have crossed off all your checklists, achieved everything you set your mind to and made all the difficult decisions that have needed to be made all along, perfectly aligned with your values. There is enough information out there, plenty of books and guides and podcasts, so that begs the question:

There is a void between knowing and doing. An abyss that is deep and wide and often dark where from one end you can see the destination on the other end, but can’t leap to cover the distance.

So you know that a bridge has to be built, but not only do you not know how to build that bridge, you also don’t know where to find the materials and tools to build it.

That’s where your coach comes in.

Using their training, established frameworks, intuition and powerful questions, they help you uncover what you lack to get to the other side and how to get it. In the context of a metaphorical bridge, a good coach will work with you to identify what has been getting in the way of building it, what you want the bridge to look like, where you can source the tools and materials to build one, and then will work alongside you while you get to work on building that bridge, ensuring that not only do you build a sturdy one but actually walk over to the other side.

And you’ll find them cheering you on at every step of the way.

This why coaching is often called a ‘partnership’, spanning weeks or months at a time. Because that is what a coach truly is, a partner.

A coach brings structure, accountability, and the ability to see what you can’t see in yourself so you don’t just take action, you take the right action and actually follow through. They tap into your leader within, shift your perspectives when you are stuck and support you in uncovering the right steps forward.

The right coach doesn’t do the work for you, they help you do the right work, the work that actually creates change. The work that builds your bridge.

A coaching partnership usually begins with a discovery call, which is the first session where you and your coach get together after deciding to work with each other. You sit down with your coach to discuss what your goals are, where you are stuck, and the coach in turn asks you what they can do in terms of the pace, level of challenge and comfort of the partnership to make it the most effective for you. In the language of Co-Active Training Institute, where I trained as a coach, this is known as ‘designing the alliance’.

In the following sessions, the coach uses different tools and techniques to help you uncover powerful insights about who you are, what you want and how you can get there. These can be assessment tools, coaching techniques and proven frameworks, such as the character strengths assessment, the wheel of life or the wheel of career, the Positive Intelligence Quotient, your character strengths assessments to name a few, in addition to fundamental principles of values, your allies, your inner saboteurs, difference perspectives leading to empowered choices, and following that up with commitment and action.

The coaching partnership is essentially a ‘dance’, where it is focused very much on the present and the coach alters their approach depending on where the client is at any given moment. A good coach walks to meet the client where they want to be met, and then seeks permission to guide them forward by challenging them.

Note that a coach is not a mentor or a consultant. A coach is different from a consultant or mentor. Unlike consultants who provide solutions or mentors who share their own paths, a coach creates the space for you to uncover your own insights by asking the right questions and using the relevant principles and tools.

What a coach won’t do is give you answers, or advice. In fact, the right coach will hold themselves back from putting on their consultant hat and giving advice when you share a problem with them. In the coaching world, we call this ‘self-management’. It is easy to give solutions and offer advice, but it takes great skill and practice to hold yourselves back and hold space for the coachee/client to uncover their own answers with the tools they are provided. To be comfortable with the silence long enough to have the coachee/client experience their breakthroughs. If you find someone adept at that skill, they are the right coach for you.

The short answer is ‘no’. Is it transformative? Yes. Is it fun? Also, yes.

But is it easy? No. Being coached is hard work. If you come in expecting solutions or answers, a coach is not the right person for you.

A good coach will often hold up a mirror, they reflect who you are being. You start seeing your patterns and inner saboteurs, you notice your self-limiting beliefs and how many of them are self-imposed. A coach will push you from familiar narratives to
possibility. And none of that is easy, it is disorienting.

Being coached demands honestly, vulnerability and most importantly, a sense of ownership. You will face yourself, you will embrace yourself. And you will evolve.

And shedding identities to become the best version of yourself is hard, but it is always worth it.

With the right coach who understands you, is intuitive and helps you grow, the answer is a resounding YES! Coaching strengthens your inner foundation, upon which you build for years to come. It aligns your trajectory with your values, so that your flight gets to the right destination.

Investing in coaching is like sowing a seed. An acorn. You plant it, water it, give it light and then..you wait. You see nothing in the moment, and then one day a tiny leaf germinates and before you know it, there is an unwavering oak tree in its place.

You are the acorn waiting to turn into a mighty oak tree, and the right coach will make that happen for you.