I’m becoming a coach. On the Very Hungry Caterpillar scale of transformation, I’d say I am currently at Wednesday; ‘three plums’ and still hungry. Strong foundations, but lots more to consume. Sometime in February, I should emerge from my training as an enabling, unlocking and qualified butterfly.
When I tell people, they are often curious to understand what coaching really is.
“So are you going to be a business coach or a life coach?”
“It’s a bit like therapy for work, right?”
and
“Maybe you can coach me!”
(Maybe I can 😊 )
It’s more than “you go, girl” and definitely a lot less of “if I were you, I’d climb that skyscraper / confront that jerk / astound that boss”. It’s not mentoring; giving your opinion and advice. Which is interesting, given that that’s literally the way that I earn money. That was a struggle to reconcile at first, until (in a coaching conversation) the penny dropped and I realised it’s really two sides of the same coin: helping people/teams/workplaces to thrive.
Coaching is like having a supportive ‘sounding board’, but one with insight, experience and some killer questions that help you realise what’s really going on here. Because most of the time, it’s something that we haven’t quite put our finger on yet. And I don’t draw a hard distinction between business coaching and life coaching. We all bring what’s going on in our life into work, and our work always affects our life. Putting life and work in separate buckets with lids on won’t create much momentum.
I invested in coaching last year as a client. It helped me figure out what I really wanted from this moment of my life, and what to do next in order to get it (work in progress). It has helped me to make braver decisions and stick my neck out with more confidence, and for that I’ll be forever grateful to Anna!
I’m learning to coach alongside some special people – since we coach each other twice a week we are getting to know each other pretty well. They come from all over, but there are some interesting strands that that pull us together:
- Burnt out / disillusioned by a toxic workplace
- Genuine desire to help people
- A strong strand of HR professionals in there (no surprise)
- Looking for meaningful work that works for them
My plan is to use my coaching skills to help leaders shape more healthy, productive workplaces and nudge company cultures to be more human. I’m about to start pro bono coaching with three clients as part of my training. In the very short term, it will just be a privilege to help a few people make more progress in the direction they want.
