What is coaching?
I admit that I live in a bit of a coaching bubble. A lot of my friends are coaches and most of them specialize in a narrow niche. I know lots of Functional Health Coaches, Life Coaches, Grief Coaches, Confidence Coaches, Career Coaches, Mental Fitness Coaches, Executive Coaches, even coaches who just work on your ‘vision’… the list goes on.
But if you’ve never worked with a coach before and aren’t sure what it entails let me try to explain what you’re letting yourself in for.
My first experience of working with a coach was in a group program for alopecia. However that program was pure information and not coaching at all. While information is part of the story it doesn’t facilitate the transformation that coaching can provide. This is why I draw a clear line between my online courses which are pure information and the option of group coaching which gives the opportunity for you to experience an ‘Aha!’ moment unique to you.
While I originally retrained as a Functional Health coach to help others with hair loss, I quickly realised the immense power that coaching has the power to deliver. It’s literally life-changing. For example, my mental fitness coaching enabled me to give up alcohol. I’m seven months sober and have just had my first booze free birthday and Christmas. The Positive Intelligence mental fitness program was a game changer for me. After completing the seven week training I stopped drinking and haven’t looked back. The great thing about this program is that you can apply it to any area of your life that you’re struggling with.
I’m aware that my background isn’t a ‘normal’ one. I’ve lived and worked all over the world and have made major life changes with ease. Before retraining as a coach I’d moved between different industries and sectors without any major difficulties. Before training as a Coach I was already something of an expert at creating positive changes. My approach to my own life is that there’s no problem or issue that can’t be fixed or improved. I bring this attitude to my clients.
I don’t just work with people with hair loss, or women managing perimenopause or with mental fitness… I also coach a couple of days a week for a local non-profit. This keeps my feet firmly on the ground and gives me the opportunity to work with an incredibly diverse group of people. To date I’ve coached men, women and those who are gender fluid on weight loss, chronic disease management, alcohol and drug misuse, long Covid, anxiety and homelessness.
If coaching can support a homeless young man who’s sleeping in his car while continuing to hold down a full-time job, what could it do for you? He moves into his own apartment in January, he’s secured a promotion at work and he’s started a business on the side! Our coaching gave him a non-judgmental space to talk about what he wanted in his life. Together we came up with simple, practical goals for him to work on each week. His confidence in himself grew as he experienced success, and then he became braver and took bigger and bolder actions. Obviously as his coach I want him to succeed, but I can’t take those steps for him. It sounds cheesy but when he lacked confidence or direction the space created in our coaching calls gave him that confidence and direction which was lying underneath all along.
I like this definition from Wellcoaches: The relationship between a coach and client offers a profound level of support, guidance, and encouragement to making changes, without being judgmental. A coach enables change by focusing on a client’s stated agenda including needs, values, vision, and goals and helping to bring out his/her personal best.
Coaching enables you to take that next step to prioritise yourself. It can be scary because you’re owning up to that responsibility. If your goal is to lose weight all of those excuses that you’ve been telling yourself start to disappear until we unearth the actual reason behind it. Once that’s uncovered we can deal with it together in the non-judgmental coaching space. It may take a few months or just a couple of sessions. That said when you start to make a commitment to yourself it becomes its own reward.
If you’re ready to discover your own future personal agenda let’s have a no obligation chat. I might not be the right coach for you which is fine, the chances are that I’ll be able to recommend somebody else from my network who might be a better fit. What do you have to lose?
