If you:
If you:
Coaching is about collaboration between a coach and a client with the view to achieving the true goals of the client in a situation where they cannot be achieved by means of usual behavioral strategies, or the use of usual strategies requires too much time and effort. In the broad sense of the word, coaching is a collaboration aimed at fulfilling the client’s potential and talents in his or her life and career.
By finding and implementing new behavioral strategies leading to the implementation of the true goals and turning what really matters into reality. Through the insights that energize change. Through the creation and implementation of «small, low-cost experiments» to create new experience.
A coach creates a safe space on the basis of a non-judgmental presence, so that the client can comfortably behave in any way, whether he approves of it or not, and can also make mistakes, be imperfect, open and vulnerable. Change means venturing into the unknown and mistakes along the way are inevitable. A coach is like a «clear mirror» or a «flashlight», helping the client to see (notice) what he did not notice before both in himself and in the challenges/situations he faces, get his own insights and make the best choices in this clear, expanded field of vision. When the client begins to try something new, the coach is there like a Sherpa guide, ready to provide support and help the client to proceed mindfully.
For the same reason that we need a mirror. Our usual methods of thinking, our emotional and mental complexes, prevent us from going beyond ordinary perception and leveraging on the resources we have. Looking in the mirror is not always pleasant – you may lose some of your illusions and become responsible for your own choices. It's one thing to be mop-headed without realizing it, but seeing yourself in the mirror and still not getting your hair right is something else entirely. It is when you look in the mirror that you actually make a conscious decision whether or not to leave your hair uncombed.
Another reason is that a human being is part of wider systems and changing him in any way will introduce change to the system. The system is resistant. Therefore there must be someone who can help overcome this «headwind» along the way, will be your friend and a reliable support when negotiating a tricky pass on the journey. It is only when he has got through the pass that the traveler can proceed on his own.
A coach is a guide who helps you enter a place where you have not been before for whatever reason, to step over the edge and yet remain on your feet. Surprisingly, it is not only scary places that people «avoid entering», but also those that offer joys and pleasures.
Strange as it may seem, living a happy life can also be scary.
It is not easy to find the right size of this step – it should be an effort, but not too great. A coach will follow shoulder to shoulder with their client to the so-called «point of no return» where the necessary change will have taken root in the client’s life and career.