Mindfulness Coaching - is it for you?

There is a lot of confusion about coaching. Many successful people see a coach regularly because they recognise that having someone offer an outside perspective and ask them useful questions allows them to take their endeavours to the next level.

I am a coach and I use the services of a coach to keep me working well. I coach using mindfulness practices to help people untangle worry and confusion, pain and suffering and rediscover clarity,  inspiration and confidence. Coaching is not counselling and I'm not a qualified counsellor. The main purposes of coaching is:

• Discover, clarify, and align with what the client wants to achieve
• Encourage client self-discovery
• Elicit client-generated solutions and strategies
• Hold the client responsible and accountable

The difference and similarities between Coaching and Counselling

Coaching    

• Listening and asking questions
• Future / present focused    
• Solution / Intention focused    
• Works towards outcomes (building skills)
• Does not give advice unless asked, but poses answers as challenges     
• Asks the question “How can we be effective?” and offers tools.
• The client is believed to hold the answers The client is assisted to find their solutions, the coach offers challenges
• Reframing – using client language and offering other language to reframe choices

Counselling

• Listening and asking questions
• Past / present focused
• Problem / Pain acceptance focused
• Works towards emotions (making peace)
• Does not give advice unless asked, but poses answers as empathy 
• More interested in ‘why’ - finding meaning and inner peace.  
• The client is believed to hold the answers via exploring their pain and issues, but the counsellor offers treatments 
• Reflecting – using client language and tone to recap important words or phrases

Both approaches can be useful, and when I coach I may at times take more of a counselling approach, but I see coaching as an effective way to encourage clients to improve their self-connection, become happier and more successful in achieving chosen goals. The big question is... 

DO I NEED A COACH?
No. 'Need' is a strong word. You don't need - you are a capable human even if you have lost your way a little. You can work on yourself and you will arrive at the right place. A coach will facilitate that process to make it smoother, faster and easier. It's a choice. But here are 7 clear reasons you might choose a coach to help you, even if you feel fine:

1. COMPLACENCY: When you think you’ve tried everything you get complacent and can fall into the trap of belief  that “it’s hopeless” or "I know what I’m doing." This is a stagnation. Coaches challenge knowledge, and will encourage you to learn, by asking “what may I be missing?” If discovered this can shift your entire worldview and help you enjoy and acheive more than ever before. 

2. BLIND SPOTS: The longer you live and work the more blind spots you develop. Coaches point them out and help you plan to clear them. 

3. UNBIASED HELP: Unlike friends and family coaches are unbiased, honest and skilful communicators. Coaches say it as they see it and try and remove their prejudice. They're not invested in your choices, so they won't be tainted by them. They’ll just aim to help you find the right path for you.

4.EXTRA ENERGY AND COMPUTING POWER: You haven't always got the energy and courage to ask pertinent and difficult questions of yourself. A coach will. With the energy boost comes another human to direct it at solving issues - two heads are better than one!

5. CONFLICT RESOLUTION: A coach supports you to manage conflict effectively - to walk the line between empathy and boundaries, from a detached perspective, and with the skill of their training and practice. 

6. OPENING UP: You can be more open with a trusted coach than any other business relationship, and at times, even more than intimate relationships. This is helpful, to get stuff off the chest and stop wasting energy holding it. It can also be helpful to encourage us to open up vulneraby with those you’d like to be more intimate with; to build real connections.  

7. EXPAND OPTIONS AND FOCUS DECISIONS: The Coach helps you significantly expand your options, and also your decision-making ability, by facilitating you to remind yourself of what is important and what isn't. ​

 WHAT HAPPENS IN A COACHING SESSION?
Ok, you like the sound of that, yes? Confused about what will happen in the session? 

• A sessions usually last 75 minutes.
• Beforehand you’ll be asked what your intention is - what is it you’d like to work on and what is the outcome you’d like to achieve.
• The coach will help you arrive and welcome you with a guided meditation to clear your stressful mind and body.
• Some questions will be asked to get thoughts stimulated. The coach is there to guide you to help yourself.
• It may be that you need space to be heard, reflected and encouraged.
• It may be you then need some tools to help cope or to transform the suffering into productive and positive action.
• The coach will have an array of these available, but instead of advising and teaching, they will offer you the choices. The aim is that the client feels supported and has a plan of action at the end of the session.
• The coach will check to see if you are happy with the session and how close it was to meeting the aim you specified at the start.
• We usually end with a short meditation to help embed the work.

You’ll be amazed how much progress we can make towards an aim in one session. Picking a block of 4 and working in between the sessions exponentially increases your progress and learning (potentially). 

CONSIDERING IT?
Ok, here are 6 questions for you to consider, if you are thinking coaching might be helpful:
1. Do you have the courage to acknowledge that you may need or could be helped by a coach?
2. Are you ready to question your limiting beliefs, biases and assumptions that may be stopping you from achieving your full potential, or your organization’s full potential?
3. Do you and/or your organization/relationships lack a clear vision of where they want also lack inspiration and motivation? 
4. Do you need to be shaken up out coasting and slumber, to get excited and refreshed?
5. Are you working hard, and yet not achieving all of your desired results? 
6. Are you ready to make a learning commitment, and then build a learning culture? 

If your answer 3 or more as 'Yes', then time has come for you to get yourself a skilled coach.

​