I start to write this as I am nearing the end of my Barefoot Post Graduate Certificate in Business and Personal Coaching course. I have the pleasure of writing this from the perspective of someone who has paid to be coached and as someone who is now trained to coach. This blog post should give you a good overview of what coaching is and the benefits of coaching.
The benefits of coaching are many:
- 80% of people who receive coaching report increased self-confidence
- Over 70% benefit from improved work performance, relationships, and more effective communication skills
- 86% of companies report that they recouped their investment on coaching and more
(source: ICF 2009)
How Coaching Compares to Mentoring and Therapy
Coaching vs Mentoring
One misconception is that coaching and mentoring are the same. There can be overlap but just to be clear, mentoring is generally with someone with a background in the subject you are working on (could be many areas like career, sports, wellbeing) and is giving advice based on their experience. Coaching is based around individuals having solutions or answers within themselves and we as coaches ask the right questions, give the correct space, do the right listening and sometimes use tools to help individuals get to the answers.
Coaching vs Therapy
The best analogy I heard around this is like when you are driving a car; therapy is more looking in the rear-view mirror, and coaching is more looking forward. The one slight difference I would say is that sometimes in coaching we may peer a little in the rear-view mirror, for example when we start to help the coachee understand their values (which are often linked to past experiences).
Benefits of Coaching
Time and Space to Think
This is a real key area of coaching especially in the modern world where our time and space to think has been reduced due to technology (think emails, texts, WhatsApp, social media). Coaching sessions can give you that space to actually think; our human minds are programmed when we are listening to people talk to go into solution mode, or for our mind to drift. As coaches we are trained in and practise our listening skills which can be so very powerful for the person who is being listened to.
I would recommend you to read the Nancy Kline book “Time to think” as this explains a lot more on this topic and is quite literally inspiring. Also, next time you are with someone why not try listening without interrupting – see what a difference it can make and also just notice when your mind starts to wander.
Led by a Qualified Professional who Asks you the Right Questions
Linked to the previous section, not only is listening important as a coach but also being curious. When questioning as a coach we have to be mindful about not asking leading questions, but more probing and exploring questions that helps the coachee also understand more about themselves or the situation. Also, incisive questions can be very powerful as people often have limiting assumptions and incisive questions are designed to free you from limiting assumptions/beliefs.
Tools That can be Used to Give you More Awareness
Also within the coaches armoury are a whole range of tools that we can use to explore topics and help give coachees more awareness. I didn’t think I was a visual person but some of the visualisation tools that have been practised on myself have been very powerful and have seen me look at a number of areas of my life with a different light.
Self-Improvement
Overall I see anyone who is interested or undertakes some coaching from a qualified coach is all about self-improvement. I am sure we are all guilty of being too close to the coal face to actually stop and think about better ways of doing things or perhaps ways to generate new or better habits?
I suggest if you have read this and are interested in knowing more why not see what coaches we have at Red Tiger Coaching and book a free initial session to find out more. Also bear in mind that in terms of cost, your employer may also be open to funding coaching as a way of facilitating self-development.
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