What is coaching?
I didn’t know much at all about coaching when I first stumbled upon it, so I am figuring many of you will be the same. So, for those of you who are thinking, ‘What is this all about? Can it help me? Or is it just some crazy woo-woo business I should steer clear of?’ – this is for you.
One of the first things I want to clear up is the difference between coaching and therapy. The short answer is that therapy is for people who are not functioning in some area of their life – they need help from a therapist to bring themselves to a minimum baseline. Coaching is for people who are already functioning at this minimum baseline or higher and want to reach a higher standard in some area of their life.
I am not a therapist and am not qualified to help people who require help from a trained professional. My coaching and the programs I offer are not designed for people who are suffering from clinical depression, anxiety, eating disorders, trauma or other disorders. Coaching is designed to help the vast majority of people who are not struggling with these issues. When I discuss what happens during coaching and the programs I offer, I am referring to working with functioning individuals who are not in need of therapy.
When you work with a coach, you will typically focus on a particular area of your life that you wish to improve in some way. Through my training at The Life Coach School we have been taught how to use tools that can help anyone with any problem. When I talk about a ‘problem’, I simply mean anything that is not how you want it to be.
I have narrowed my focus to specialise in helping mums. The kinds of issues I typically help my clients with include: relationship difficulties; parenting battles; feelings of disorganisation and overwhelm; lack of self-care; self-confidence; struggling to maintain healthy habits; time management; mummy-guilt etc.
In a coaching session, a coach will work with you to discover where you are now and why. They will help you work out where you want to be – what is your ideal vision in this particular area of your life, and then help you overcome all the obstacles in the way of you achieving that goal.
A coach never wavers in their belief that you can achieve what you want. They are always on your side. This looks different to a friendship though – a coach’s job is not to empathise with you. We call that ‘jumping in the pool’. If a coach does this, there is nowhere to go and they can’t help you. A coach needs to stay out of the pool, on the side, ready to help you get out. At first this can seem strange. We are so used to having our friends agree with our story of the way things are, it can be uncomfortable to have our view of the world questioned. The problem with this is then we have no way out - we stay stuck.
A coach helps you through the process of moving from where you are now to where you want to be. This process might not be (and often isn’t) linear. There will be setbacks along the way, as you’ve probably noticed yourself whenever you’ve tried to make a change or reach a goal in some area of your life. In the past these setbacks might have caused us to quit. When you work with a coach they help you see what is really happening and how to make a plan to move forward.
What’s happening for you right now that you wish was different? I’d love to know – send me an email at jenny@jennypercy.com if you’d like to find out if life coaching can help you.
