Trying to explain what is coaching to my Mum

The always present question of explaining what is your job when you are a professional coach, what it is and what it is not. After over 13 years of being a coach, my mum still says about me “my daughter? What she does exactly, I wouldn’t be able to explain, I know she supports people in their job, their business. She gives them advice…”

Haaa the worst thing to say Mum, coaching is not about giving advice

As a client or a future client you might wonder what is coaching and what it twill bring you. Of course, very safe thing to reflect on…

Recently I participated in a coach training that was very interesting. International participation, experienced and friendly people really willing to learn about coaching. They were a group of experienced people, executives, from the private and public sector, corporate sector, really interesting bunch of people who had knowledge and experience of managing, HR, sales department. We covered it all almost! Trainers were experienced and holding an ICF credential.

At a point, when the trainer was clarifying what is coaching, the conversation went into a debate about the coachee: who he/she is, what she does, what he/she needs etc…

And the debate went on an on of course. I say of course because I believe that anyone could do with a little bit of coaching. When we generalize, we usually speak for ourselves. So what I heard was probably telling a lot about people themselves !

Back to the point.

Trying to clarify what coaching is and what it is not by looking at the coachee might be a wrong path. Yes the coachee will be at the center of the process once the agreement is about to be settled. Yes ! coaching all about the coachee.

But right now, it is the coach’s job to speak out and be clear about coaching and his/her own way of coaching.

I believe coaching can be clarified by a combination of several different things put together: a process, its purpose, the philosophy behind it and the ethics, what happens during the process.

To address a situation or solve a problem, as a professional and human being, you might have several ways to get help, and coaching is only one of them. Training, therapy or counseling could also be a choice.

As a coach, I trust that you are the one in charge of your life and that you will be able to choose by yourself. As a coachee, what you need is a mirror to reflect yourself in, get insights about your own mindsed, your own vision, values, bias…

It’s you, the coachee who will decide what to do with the insight, we have plenty of time during our coaching sessions to check your own action plan.

Gaining awareness and having insights is one of the main purposes of being coached.

Without that, you might end up agitating yourself in meaningless actions.