How Coaching Works
WHAT IS COACHING?
Coaching is an ongoing relationship between a coach and a person who desires/wants coaching. We agree that:
- Coaching is not therapy, counseling, advice-giving, mental health care, or treatment for substance abuse. Although there may be some crossover at times. The coach is not functioning as a licensed mental health professional, and coaching is not intended as a replacement for counseling, psychiatric interventions, treatment for mental illness, recovery from past abuse, professional medical advice, financial assistance, legal counsel, or other professional services.
- Coaching is for people who are well-adjusted, emotionally healthy, functioning effectively, and want to make changes in their lives.
- Coaching is designed to address issues the person being coached would like to consider. These could include (but are not limited to) career development, relationship enhancement, spiritual growth, lifestyle management, life balance, decision making, and achieving short-term or long-term goals.
- Coaching will be an ongoing relationship that may take a number of months, although either party can terminate the relationship at any time. Most or all coaching may be through telephone contact or Zoom.
- Coaching can involve brainstorming, values clarification, the completion of written assignments, education, goal setting, identifying plans of action, accountability, making requests, agreements to change behavior, examining lifestyles and questioning.
- Coaching is most effective when both parties are honest and straightforward in their communications.
- Coaching is a confidential relationship and the coach agrees to keep all information strictly confidential, except in those situations where such confidentiality would violate the law.
- Each of the people whose indication appears below agrees that this agreement represents our mutual understanding of the coaching relationship.
MAKING THE MOST OF THE COACHING RELATIONSHIP
1. Make a list of what you really want in your work and personal life. Coaching fosters the realization of extraordinary results when you have a clear vision and goals, which are based on your values.
2. Get to know yourself NEWLY. Working with a skilled coach is a powerful way to grow. Most clients work with a coach to accomplish several specific goals. Yet don’t be surprised if you discover new parts of yourself, or if you find yourself adjusting your goals to match who you have discovered you really are.
3. Expand you level of willingness. Experiment with new ideas and be open to redesign the parts of your life that no longer serve you and your vision. Be willing to:
- Change your behavior
- Experiment and try new things.
- Remove sources of stress in your life.
- Redesign how you spend your time.
- Re-look at the assumptions and decisions you’ve made.
- Get the support you need to handle any obstacles that get in the way of you fully realizing your potential.
- Raise your personal standards.
- Identify comfort zones in which you are stuck. Be willing to step into areas of discomfort.
4. Come to the coaching session prepared, with an agenda. We have a set amount of time together, so you will want to have an idea of things you want to share and discuss in order to get what you want from the session. Examples:
- Successes and wins you’ve had since our last session.
- Challenges you’ve faced and how you’ve handled them.
- Opportunities you’re attracting.
- Shifts or new awareness that excite you.
- The outcome you want for this coaching session.
- What you see as the next thing to work on.
5. Do your homework. Based on our coaching conversations, we will identify fieldwork consisting of tasks, actions, results or changes you commit to complete before our next conversation. The fieldwork is designed to keep you in action, always moving in the direction of achieving your goals.