Are You Ready for Coaching?
Are You Ready for Coaching?
Explore 9 areas covering practical, mindset and personal traits that will help you embark on a coaching engagement with confidence.
How do you know if you are ready for coaching? What mindset would help you get the most from your coaching experience? What logistical or practical considerations should you address before engaging a coach?
You may have a friend or colleague who works with a business or leadership coach and are wondering if you could see similar results or achieve comparable outcomes. In this article we explore several mindset and personal traits that set coaching clients up for success. We will also look at some practical preparations or steps a potential coaching client should take before starting coaching.
Practical Considerations:
(1) Have a vision, goal or topic that you would like to clarify, think through or achieve.
If you are reading this you probably have some idea of why you want to engage a coach. Maybe you know someone who has accelerated their business or career growth through coaching and you would like to move forward on goals of your own. Perhaps you have goals you want to clarify - are they outcomes you really want - and then work towards them with the support of a professional coach. You could also simply be sick of being stuck and want support to take action that will help you move forward on what matters to you.
If you are having difficulty getting specific, in most cases a coach will help you define your focus for the coaching engagement period. They will also help you assess whether that specific goal is in line with your big picture goals and values. Although starting without a S.M.A.R.T goal or word-for-word objective is not necessarily a dealbreaker, a successful coaching client starts with a vision, topic or issue that they are willing to get laser-focused on or dig into.
(2) Be willing to invest financially in a way that is realistic and reasonable based on your goals.
Like any professional service, coaching requires a financial investment and pricing can vary tremendously. Some coaches require full payment for six months or more up front. Others will bill per session or monthly. Here are a few thoughts and questions to consider:
For clients in business or looking for leadership or career coaching, coaching is both a professional development and personal development resource. How much are you (or your sponsor) willing and able to spend on coaching as part of your professional or personal development plan?
How will you know if your budget is enough?
What are the desired and possible outcomes you want? What is the value to you of making them happen?
What would you lose (financially or otherwise) by not achieving your goal?
Some coaches post their rates publicly. Others prefer to meet with a potential client and discuss the client’s goals and expectations before discussing coaching options and pricing. Consider your budget and remember how you came to that figure. This will help you see if a coaching offer is viable for you right now, or if it is something to save for.
(3) Be willing to invest the time and be present for scheduled sessions.
As well as the financial investment, coaching requires an investment of your time and energy. You can usually find information regarding session length and frequency on a coach’s website or sample contract. If not, a coach will readily outline this in an email or on a consult call. In many cases a coaching session is between 30 and 60 minutes and is held weekly, or every two weeks.
One thing some potential clients wonder is, “How much extra time will I need between sessions?” The answer is, “It depends.” I find a good rule of thumb is to think about how important it is to make progress on your particular goals. Then think about how much time each day you would like to give to supporting that progress. Whatever your specific goal for coaching, it is part of your overall vision for your life and business or career. Be realistic about your personal and professional commitments. Get honest about your priorities. Great coaching stretches you (in the best possible way), but to avoid snapping, you may need to adjust other parts of your work or life before you commit to coaching. Of course you can take advantage of coaching to help you make those adjustments. Discuss your situation during a free consult call or introductory session and see what support a coach can offer.
As a client of coaching I know that any time I have invested in coaching has been valuable. Coaching has helped me make better use of my time and be more productive, thus saving me both time and energy. Coaching also accelerates progress on goals meaning you get to where you want to be faster.
Mindset and Personal Traits:
I love to dig deep into mindset. I believe each of us is exactly where we need to be, and yet there is always room for growth. I spend many of my own coaching sessions working to understand and shift various unsupportive mindsets. Coaching helps us build self-awareness. It helps us uncover the thinking, behaviours and patterns that are not working and to maximise the ones that are working.
You know you have a few beliefs, mindsets or patterns you want to shift, but what mindsets would it be helpful to have going into coaching? What attitudes, if you had them, would make coaching more effective? The following mindsets or personal traits will help you make the most from your coaching experience.
(4) Be humble.
Coaches love to see clients celebrate their progress and be proud of their accomplishments. Some clients are hypercritical of themselves and a coach can help them see themselves in a kinder and more realistic light. So how does healthy humility fit into a successful coaching experience? It takes humility to be honest with ourselves and honest about our mistakes. We experience a vulnerability when we open up about certain details of our life or business. It takes humility to learn and explore possibilities.
There are many ways that humility helps us to optimise our experience of coaching. If you want more than superficial results for your investment of time and money, be humble.
(5) Be open to change what is not working.
If you see a coach to help you deal with a particular issue and then decide not to do anything to change things, you are really wasting your time and your money. Coaches support us to go from where we are to where we want to be. It will mean we need to do at least some things differently.
If you commence coaching and notice you are resisting changing something that you can acknowledge is not working, be open with your coach about what is going on. You may need to explore what is getting you stuck there. One example of something that can make change difficult is the sunk-cost bias. When we have invested so much of our time, money or energy into a thing, we can be reluctant to let it go - even if holding on to the thing (project/job/business/idea) is causing us a greater loss or pain.
(6) Be open to trust.
In order to open up to a coach, to be vulnerable, you need to trust them. A successful coaching relationship is founded on trust. Depending on your goals, coaching conversations can focus on your finances, health or relationships. Think about how you feel discussing these topics. What would make it easier for you to open up about topics you find difficult or embarrassing to discuss? If you are willing to be open, but know it will be challenging, let a potential coach know that and see how they can support you. Communicating openly and honestly with your coach will help your coach work with you in the best possible way for your goals, processes and personality.
Of course, your coach should show themselves to be trustworthy. Get to know them through their free or low-cost content or media. Book an introductory session and get to know them one-to-one. Ask a coach for their privacy and confidentiality policy, and ask them for details if you need clarification. If a coach is a member of the International Coaching Federation they are committed to a code of ethics which addresses confidentiality. An ICF member coach will take your privacy and confidentiality seriously and will encourage you to raise any concerns.
(7) Be curious and be willing to experiment and challenge the status quo.
Are you naturally curious? If you are entrepreneurial, the answer is likely, “Yes”. Other readers may need to pause and reflect. Has your natural curiosity been suppressed or diminished over time? Revive your curiosity if you really want to benefit from coaching. You may be seeking coaching around a business or career goal, but you will also benefit from the personal development coaching provides. The growing self-awareness that comes with coaching and a curious mind is what will support you to set and achieve aligned business, career and life goals.
Are you willing to try something new or different? Are you willing to explore different ways of thinking, doing or being? An experimenter’s mindset is a strength that can help you move forward and take action, even if you have residual fears that the action may not lead to the outcome you desire.
(8) Be willing to get uncomfortable.
Earlier I mentioned that great coaching stretches us. A coach will celebrate your wins, but they are not simply a cheerleader. Stretching to reach a valuable goal requires us to get uncomfortable at times. A supportive coach will help you be in that uncomfortable space, but ultimately you are the one who chooses if you want to allow discomfort when it is helpful.
How do you usually respond to discomfort? How do you deal with difficult conversations? Being in that uncomfortable space can give us personal insights that can get us through the stuck places. We will take that next step in our business or reach that rewarding milestone in our work when we are willing to allow some discomfort as it arises in the coaching process.
(9) Be accountable.
A desire for accountability is a common reason that a person will partner with a coach rather than go it alone. It is one of the facets of coaching that I love as a client of coaching and one that has helped me move forward on numerous goals and projects, especially ones that pushed me right out of my comfort zone.
How does accountability work in a coaching partnership? Ownership of taking action and getting results lies with the person being coached. A coach will work with you to help you build awareness of and develop accountability structures that work for you. The coaching approach to accountability is all about self-leadership. As a coach I believe my clients are creative, resourceful and whole. There is no bossy or parental-style checking up in a coaching relationship. To be ready for coaching you need to be ready to be accountable.
Are you ready to try coaching? Are you prepared practically and mentally for a successful coaching partnership? Are you willing to get outside your comfort zone and experiment with new ways of doing and being? I hope this article has provided you with valuable information to help you make an informed decision. I have witnessed the benefits of coaching with my clients, and experienced the benefits as a coaching client myself. If you decide this is the right time for you to work with a coach read this article to help you with selecting the right coach for you. Please reach out via the contact page if you would like to discuss anything else about the process or potential of coaching.
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