This is one of the most frequently asked questions. So today I want to answer this question with an article, with the purpose of clarifying what a coach is and how you can benefit of hiring such a professional.
Being a certified professional in the coaching field, I know how much confusion and misunderstanding there are around coaching. First of all, because nowadays the word coaching is used to talk about a lot of different services. Like training, counselling, mentoring and consulting, just to mention some. Plus, the world has recently seen a flourishing of certified coaches and self-proclaimed coaches. And with this, I mean that being a coach is actually a certified profession, that requires a path of studies, some exams and a specific number of hours of experience – plus, constant work and supervision to maintain the certification. Certification that you can – and should – ask to see before hiring a coach. Because coaching is a relatively new profession and the purpose of having a federation with recognised standard of quality and ethic is to guarantee the quality of the service you are paying for.
So if you are considering to hire a coach to accompany you through the change, toward your goal, I suggest that you get first some information about what coaching is. And since I am here to help, this is the definition that you can find on the Swiss Chapter of the International Coach Federation:
Coaching is partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.
Coaching helps clients to define and take action toward the realization of their visions, goals or desires. Professional coaching uses a process of inquiry and personal discovery to build the client’s level of awareness and responsibility and provides the client with structure, support and feedback. The coaching process helps clients both define and achieve professional and personal goals faster and with more ease than would be possible otherwise.
In each meeting, the client chooses the focus of conversation, while the coach listens and contributes with observations and questions. This interaction creates clarity and moves the client into action. Coaching accelerates the client’s progress by providing greater focus and awareness of choice. Coaching concentrates on where clients are now and what they are willing to do to get where they want to be in the future. Coaches recognize that results are a matter of the client’s intentions, choices and actions, supported by the coach’s efforts and application of the coaching process.
So as you can see, the outcome of coaching is to achieve your personal or professional goals, to greatly improve your life and work, to access your own resources, remove the blocks on the road and increase your options of choice.
A coach can potentially accompany you to any realistic goal you want to achieve. But concretely, in the world of coaching, professionals specialise in different areas, depending on their field of expertise, their own interests and focus, their personal experience and so on.
So that in the end, who the coach is, has a lot of impact on the area of choice and on the coaching style. Because coaches have a purpose as well, a message, a set of values, an orientation and their personal preferences that will shape the way we build our practice and the clients we work with.
But let’s come to the least known category of coaches, the one I want to talk about today. Life Coaches are those coaches that specialised in helping people live better lives. I am a Confidence Coach, so I help people to build their Self-Confidence and Self-Esteem to build fearless, authentic, really good lives. Because that’s where my life experience led me to and what I love doing.
CAN A COACH HELP YOU?
A life coach can help you on a wide range of subjects and there are so many people that would greatly benefit of this. Just to mention some, a life coach can help you to get clarity when you are confused. Or to face a challenging, stressful situation with a positive attitude and get out of it what’s best for yourself. It can be helpful when you want to clarify your life purpose, to improve your communication skills, to lose weight, to have better relationship, to achieve your professional goals. They are partners that helps you to live a better, healthier, more satisfying life. Full of choices and of what matters to you.
And how can they help you? What do life coaches concretely do, what’s their field of expertise, what are the problems they can help you with?
Well, it depends. I know coaches that help people in grief, in going through an overwhelming moment of change, in middle-age crisis, in going through divorce, in getting back to life after a burn-out. Basically, there are coaches for pretty much every possible need.
WHY CAN’T A FRIEND JUST HELP YOU?
Life Coaches work mainly in the private life area. And in this area, people are not yet used to pay for this type of service. So why should you pay instead of asking advices to your friends?
First of all, because friends can be wise and well-intentioned, but they are not trained help professionals. They don’t know how to help you and they are in your entourage. They will basically share with you their own opinions and advices, based on their own values and beliefs, based on their experiences. In some cases their help is enough, in some others, it’s not.
Second, because it’s not a friend’s role to help you with that. Even the most well-intentioned friend, will basically tell you that “If I were you, I’d do this“. But guess what? They are not you. I am sure that you already have a lot of friends and family giving you “advices” that don’t work for you. Actually in some occasions, turn to friends can even lead to an unpleasant discussion.
Third, because they can fall in the trap of complaining with you and grow the negativity circle – like those evening when the activity is complaining about each other’s job and nobody feels better.
Fourth, because they can judge you. Like, telling what they think “your problem” is. Being apparently helpful but not really helpful. And it can hurt. They can even bring up what they did for you later and this can consume even the best friendship. I am sure you don’t want that.
DO YOU NEED AN HELPING PROFESSIONAL?
Getting help when we struggle with something is human. We can’t expect to know everything, to be always “strong”, to make it no matter what. And here there is a big misunderstanding. This message that is repeated everywhere nowadays, that asking for help is being weak, or even broken. That’s it’s being not strong and performant enough, to cope with it. Instead of recognising the hard challenges we face today, the bar is set too high and we are used to call broken who doesn’t have it all together. But honestly, who does?
And you know the stigma that is all around the concept of being weak and broken? It’s even worse when talking about psychologists, psychotherapists and psychiatrists, another category of helping professionals that I truly appreciate. Surprisingly, still nowadays, I see people reacting with shame around this subject.
And for some reasons, life coaches have undeservedly inherited that.
While, let me share my vision of it: there is nothing wrong in asking for help when things in life gets complicated. I don’t think it’s a matter of weakness, I believe it’s a matter of courage. It’s acknowledging that something in our lives is challenging and we may need some support with it. It’s human. It’s taking responsibility over our lives and change them for the best.
And that’s when a coach can help you.
