What is Coaching?
Coaching is essentially an exploratory conversation between the coach and the client.
Together, we focus on how you would like things to be and help you figure out a way to get there, consciously evaluating and assessing what we find on the way. This is known as non-directive coaching.
Will I benefit from coaching?
In our busy modern world, we are at risk of losing the beautiful skill of noticing. As a consequence, many options can be lost because we are simply blind to the fact that those options even exist.
Let’s compare life to a road trip from A to B.
A big portion of our lives takes place in a motorway setting, where we operate on “auto-pilot” or “cruise control”. This is fast and convenient, and we might even argue that it is functional, but we stop noticing.
We can refuel and grab a quick lunch at the motorway services without losing much time.
And yet, by choosing the motorway route, we might miss out on rolling hills, quaint villages, winding country lanes, and lunch at a lovely little country inn where locals swap anecdotes at the bar. True, the journey might take a bit longer, but it opens up the possibility of a completely different experience.
Are you seeking change?
Coaching gives you back the space to live intentionally, to decide what will serve you best, how you want things to be and to notice which options are available to you so you are able to get where you intend to go. You have the chance to stand back, zoom out and see a wider perspective – not just on the present, but also on the future.
Most clients come to coaching because they are seeking
more of … less of … something different from …
so one way or another, they – like you – are essentially seeking change. Something is pinching or causing a level of unease, frustration, stress, worry or confusion. Instead, you are looking for a sense of ease, satisfaction, calm, peace or clarity.
What difference does coaching make?
Coaching gives you greater awareness of how you think; it increases your understanding of how and why you respond in the ways you do. This awareness brings with it the opportunity for you to consider whether these ways are helping or hindering your quest.
Greater self-awareness empowers you to have a more balanced and objective view of the options available to you.
The result? Greater intent, better quality decisions and fewer regrets.
A childhood memory that had a lasting impact on me will help to illustrate how coaching works.
Imagine a bag of tangled-up wool. It can only be used to its full potential once it is untangled.
I watched my granny empty a big bag of wool onto her farmhouse kitchen table. Beautiful colours and textures, but it was all knotted and tangled up. Where would she start?
First, she spread the whole knotted bundle out on the table. She started easing threads, gradually spreading and loosening them. It really was like magic: the more she followed tied-up threads to the next knot and loosened that knot bit by bit, the more the threads seemed to untangle themselves. She moved constantly from one knot to the other, without completely undoing a whole knot, just easing and loosening the threads.
She worked on the whole bundle, rather than on the individual knots.
Coaching is very much like this process of untangling. Sometimes the client is not quite sure where to start, and that is OK – there may be no single right place to start.
Together, we focus on one thing at a time (easing and loosening the threads), while constantly considering what we find in relation to the wider perspective (the whole bundle).
Veils are removed, dots are joined and lights go on.
As awareness increases, it creates greater ease, which allows a wider perspective. This in turn gives greater mobility.
And that is the beautiful untangling business ofthat coaching provides./ business of coaching
How and why does coaching work?
What clients have to say
“I’m more relaxed, content and comfortable with myself.”
“I know who I am. My expression of my true self is increasing every day.”
“Understanding my responses has opened a door to a different world for me.”