What Is Coaching And How It Can Help You?

Coaching is becoming a growing area of interest for both individuals and organisations. It has been widely recognised that coaching can positively impact our personal and professional lives, resulting in increased engagement, resilience, creativity and productivity.

Coaching can reduce stress, lead to better decision-making, better relationships and, in business, facilitate effective management and inspired leadership.

The International Coach Federation (ICF), which is the leading global organisation dedicated to advancing the coaching profession, defines coaching as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximise their personal and professional potential”.

That’s a great definition, but there’s more to it than that. As an experienced coach, I’d like to add a few additional insights to help you understand what coaching is and why it is so helpful:

• Coaching is a space for you. It is about pressing the pause button and giving yourself time and your fullest attention. Coaching is a space in which you are able to look at yourself and your life from a completely new perspective and arrive at the fullest understanding of who you are. Your actions, your decisions, your way of being in the world and ultimately your results come from that place of understanding. This understanding serves as a foundation for everything that you wish to experience and create in your life.

• Coaching is simply a conversation. And at the same time it is so much more than that. It is a different type of conversation to one you might have with your friends, colleagues or family. A coaching conversation invites you to connect, reflect and listen more deeply to yourself and others. It takes you beyond your usual ways of thinking and enables you to harness fresh insights, energy and extraordinary potential within yourself. Everyone has that potential and only a few harness it.

• Coaching is a discovery. During my coaching sessions, you will learn simple yet powerful principles that govern human psychology and generate your whole experience of life. I call them insight principles. This is about discovery of your own inner compass so that you can navigate your life with less stress and more ease, clarity, creativity and success, and always find your way back home. Your compass will serve you not just during the coaching programme, but also for the rest of your life. It will help you to know where you are at any given moment, never feel lost, respond wisely to challenging circumstances and make the most of your life.

As your coach my role is to be your guide and mentor, assisting you every step of the way and helping you turn your stress into success. Yes, it is possible.

I believe that everyone can do anything with the right support. Whether you are going through a difficult time, recovering from a failed project, a relationship break-up, chronic stress, burnout or anxiety, or whether you are wishing to progress your career to the next level, develop harmonious partnerships with your colleagues or boss, wanting to become a better manager or leader or even starting your own business – coaching can help unlock your resilience, resourcefulness, energy and creativity and elicit change that can last a very long time.

You may feel that coaching is not for you. But sometimes, it is just what you need. Talking about it cannot give you a taste of what it’s really like. It’s like talking about Paris versus jumping on the Eurostar and experiencing the city for yourself. To really know if coaching is for you, you basically have to “go to Paris” and see it for yourself.

My clients often say: “Coaching is invaluable, life-affirming and life-changing. So why did I wait so long?”

There’s no need to wait. Anyone can benefit from coaching – so why not experience it now?

Have a lovely day.

Dorothy