What is coaching?
Coaching is a process that uses a series of conversations that are structured to help you walk through matters you are handling, to arrive at actionable outcomes that you can celebrate once executed.
This journey is a partnership between a coach and a coachee. The coachee is taken through a thought provoking and creative process by the coach, including various questioning methods, to inspire the coachee to dig deep within himself/herself and eventually unlock numerous solutions to seemingly unclear situations. The process helps the coachee maximize their personal and professional potential. The coaching process involves a series of conversations, from the initial engagement until the final point, where the coachee achieves his/her picture of success.
A coaching conversation can take anywhere from one session lasting an hour, to many sessions lasting three, six, nine or even twelve months. The conversations keep the focal point as the coachee, because, of course, s/he has the answers within them. The coach continually walks with the coachee on the journey to finding solutions and relevant actions that will lead them to where they want to be.
Coaching directs an individual to focus on the future, while drawing on various experiences from the past and present. The conversation aims to spur the coachee towards achieving momentous changes, action by action.
Why Coaching?
Coaching has many benefits. Through coaching, you can attain:
- An opportunity to identify the things that really motivate you
- A chance to design actions that you can fully own
- The satisfaction of completing actions and the fulfillment that comes with that
- Increased self confidence and self – worth
- Honing of skills, gaining new knowledge and insights
- Improvement in relationships with the people around you
- Chances to challenge yourself and grow
- A view of new opportunities in career or life, and how to harness these
Coaching works!
Take the dive into this by getting fully involved in the process, give the coach all the information, be open, honest with yourself and trust the coach to guide you to the place you want to be.
*This writeup is inspired by my dedication to a 3 month immersion into Coaching, courtesy of CDI- Africa Limited, and experiences I have had with coaching within the last 16 years of my working life.