What is Coaching
Coaching is a journey into your authentic self to find and bolster your purposeful evolution
The International Coach Federation (ICF) defines coaching as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.”
How do I see it? Coaching is a partnership where the coach reflects back to the clients their inner strength. I will help sift through your thoughts and feelings.
Coaching feels like looking at a map of our lives, careers, emotions, and starting to plan the journey from where we are to where we want to get to.
Coaching will help you learn how to identify potential obstacles and define ways to overcome them, and how to commit to the path, knowing it may veer off into side adventures along the way.
Are you familiar with the concept of a trust fall? That’s a good metaphor for Coaching, and the best part is that the person with all that’s needed to catch you is, in fact, you.
During our work, I won’t tell you what you should do. I won’t tell you what’s right or wrong. I will offer reframes and interpretations of what you already know within yourself so you can own and find strength in your steps forward.
The Co-Active Training Institute (CTI) offers a particularly effective method of coaching. In a current state of the professional world where we are mostly measured in the doing, CTI focuses on the combination of DOING and BEING. Finding the synchronicity between the two gives us an authentic view of our life, present, and future.
Mark Twain (attr.)
“The two most important
days in your life are the
day you were born and
the day you find out why.”
One last note on the difference between Therapy and Coaching
Often times people wonder what the difference is between Therapy and Coaching. They often happily co-exist and can be very powerful when used together for the full evolution of a person. CTI describes the difference as follows: “The main distinctions between coaching and psychotherapy are based on focus, purpose, and population. Coaching focuses on visioning, success, the present, and moving into the future. Therapy emphasizes psychopathology, emotions, and the past in order to understand the present. The purpose of coaching is frequently about performance improvement, learning, or development in some area of life while therapy often dives into deep-seated emotional issues to work on personal healing or trauma recovery.” *
I like to think of it as Therapy helps us understand how we got here, and Coaching helps us understand how to move forward with what we’ve learnt about ourselves.
*Hullinger, A. M. and DiGirolamo, J. A. (2018). Referring a client to therapy: A set of guidelines. Retrieved from International Coach Federation website: https://coachfederation.org/app/uploads/2018/05/Whitepaper-Client-Referral.pdf.
Are you ready to start your journey? Sign up for a free Discovery Session and we can plan your evolution together.
Hellen Keller