I don’t need a coach…Do I?
I don’t know, do you?
Would you answer the question differently if you knew that working with a coach is considered an indicator of success, self-awareness and increasingly a wise investment in mental and organisational resilience?
Are you put off the idea because you think that someone of your level, age or stature should surely be able to operate very successfully without one? In fact, haven’t you proved that already?
Do you quite like the idea of an hour or so spent with someone who is experienced enough in your world to understand you, who will listen without judging and allow you the space to work out the sticky, itchy problems that you can never quite get around to giving enough time to? But somehow that feels like an indulgence you haven’t got time for. After all, you can’t even get to the gym.
My experience is that everyone could do with a coach. Not permanently. But for those intermittent periods in your career when you need to talk something through with someone who will let you talk until you have finished thinking, without telling you what to do. You know what to do, you just need the time and space to think about it properly with someone who won’t judge you as you weigh the facts, consider the impacts, question yourself and those around you.
A good coach will follow your winding thought processes and ponderous silences until you finally reach the crux of the matter that is bothering you (which frequently isn’t the thing you came in for). And then will help you structure, solve, re-frame until you have worked out how to seize the opportunity or resolve the issue.
A good coaching session will send you off with a spring in your step, a renewed sense of control and purpose and more than anything, the realization that you knew all along what to do. You just needed the time and space to work it out properly.
So, now do you think you need a coach?