What is coaching?

Coaching is a form of deep personal learning and development. It’s a partnership between someone who wants to achieve something in their life – make changes, solve problems, make decisions (or all of these things) – and someone who’s able to guide and support them in doing that.

Coaching is not about telling you what to do. It is about helping you to decide what to do.

Coaching is about focused conversations. A good coach uses a mix of questioning, listening, constructively challenging, and giving honest feedback to help you gain better awareness about yourself and your abilities, so that you can use that understanding to progress.

A great coach can help you get better at life.

What’s the difference between coaching and counselling/psychotherapy?

Counselling/psychotherapy is a separate professional specialism. It focuses on helping you understand how past life experiences you’ve had might be holding you back or limiting how you live.

Coaching focuses on the future, helping you plan, make decisions, and move forward from where you are today.

What’s the difference between coaching and mentoring?

A mentor is usually an expert who you’re looking to learn from because they have a lot of experience in an area that you’re interested in; they can provide you with professional or technical advice.

A good coach doesn’t need to have any experience or knowledge that relates to the issues you want to work on. That’s because their role is to help you find the answers yourself by asking powerful questions and challenging you to think differently.

Are coaches qualified?

Coaching is not currently a regulated profession, so it’s not a legal requirement to be qualified to offer your services as a coach. But if a coach is qualified, you can be assured that they have the knowledge and skills that are essential to provide you with a high quality, ethical coaching service.

I have the equivalent of a Master’s degree in executive coaching from a highly reputable UK provider. I also have over 20 years’ experience of supporting women’s personal development through coaching.

Why would I pay for coaching when there is so much free self-help out there?

There is so much free self-help out there that it can be overwhelming – how do you know where to start, and on what? How do you know that you’re focusing your self-help on the right things for you? A coach can help you do that.

I’ve also found that people may not always be honest with themselves about what needs to change – particularly when there are hard decisions to be made or changes that they know will make them feel uncomfortable at first. A good coach will challenge you to see yourself and situations differently. They will help you see blind spots that you may have been unaware of (or are purposefully ignoring…). A good coach will tell you the truth – in a way that even your family or closest friends may not be willing or able to.

How do I know if coaching is right for me?

I’ve seen so many good things happen for people when they are coached that I think anyone can benefit from it. But the key thing is that you must be open to being coached and willing to apply what you learn. If not, coaching won’t work for you.

You will benefit from coaching if any of the following is true for you:

• You want to improve yourself in some way.
• You’re keen to invest in yourself.
• You’ve got lots of ideas and aspirations but aren’t sure where to start.
• You want someone to help motivate you and be accountable to so that you can achieve your goals.
• You’re struggling with self-doubt or a crisis of confidence about yourself and your abilities that is holding you back.
• You want to learn more about yourself and what makes you tick, so that you can better use your skills.
• You’re willing to take yourself out of your comfort zone, so that you can learn and grow.