What Is Coaching, And How Can It Help Me?

Coaching is a process of self-knowledge and personal growth that today is revealed as strategic when it comes to achieving professional or personal goals and improving performance by extracting the maximum of each individual’s capacities, resources and natural abilities. 

What is personal coaching?

As a reference, the International Coaching Federation  (ICF) definition  is ” coaching is a professional relationship that accompanies the client and allows them to achieve changes and extraordinary and satisfactory results in their professional and personal lives.” 

In other words, this discipline pursues to promote self-knowledge and development to achieve their goals and achieve everything they set out to do. This implies overcoming personal barriers and limitations, unleashing our potential, developing our skills, expanding our resources and, getting the best out of ourselves to get as close as possible to excellence in all areas, maintaining self-care. To date, it is the fastest, most powerful and most effective methodology known to motivate and empower a person. 

Although it is true that throughout the process, we will be accompanied by a  coaching professional  , who will guide us on our way, in reality, only ourselves, with effort and conviction, are responsible for empowering ourselves and transforming our lives. Five factors make coaching sessions work: 

We put ourselves into action and grow, accompanied by a  coach  but without depending on him. 

Having broader points of view gives us greater creativity to find alternative solutions, new attitudes, actions and thoughts. 

Development. We advance progressively with each bit of learning. 

Commitment  between the  coach  and us.  We know that someone trusts us, which should serve as an incentive. 

Learn to unlearn. We leave behind behaviours and attitudes that we had as a reference because that is often what keeps us stuck. 

How a coaching process is approached

In the coaching process, teamwork is carried out between the coach  and the  coachee. Both will jointly carry out an action plan based on what they want to improve, change, enhance or develop. When the objective is evident by both parties, a schedule of sessions is established.  

We must remember that in the coaching process, the coach occupies the role of active observer: through motivation techniques, questions and work dynamics, the  coach   will help the client to conclude. The coach’s role is, based on his knowledge and experience, to guide the client so that he can find the key to problems, solutions, objectives or obstacles in his life. He will always avoid drawing conclusions on his own or presenting them to the client, and his role is only that of a guide. For all this, achieving a climate of trust is essential where the client does not feel judged, can reflect and open up with total freedom. And sincerity. 

The main objectives that we can achieve with the coach-client relationship are:  

Motivation

The coach can awaken inspiration in their clients so that they become more assertive and can achieve their goals in any field. 

Set professional or personal goals

At certain times in our lives, we may feel we have lost our professional or personal direction. The coach will help us find that direction again, rediscover skills and concerns and, ultimately, bring out the best in us.  

Achieve focus

Considering our expectations and personal and professional characteristics, the coaching process will help us discover our approach to work on it. 

Encourages continuous learning

The premise from which a coach starts is that everything is learning; therefore, it is possible to focus on each vital stage or obstacle as a process. The idea is that the person who goes through a coaching process assimilates this approach, which will undoubtedly become a strength when facing difficulties in the future.  

Skill discovery 

Although this is not a priori the objective of coaching, the truth is that in the process, it is possible that new abilities, skills or talents are discovered that the client himself did not know about himself or that he had forgotten.  

Why is it beneficial to use it? 

Coaching is enjoyable because it is a transformative element at an individual level. Still, it significantly benefits the organization when its employees experience this process. 

According to the ICF,  coaching,  in addition to collaborating with  personal  and professional development, can achieve extraordinary results, such as increasing a company’s productivity by up to 70%. That is why it is not surprising that more and more companies request the help of  coaches   to improve both productivity and creativity,  emotional intelligence   and quality of life of their workers. What happens is that, before contracting this type of service, we must be very clear about the kinds of coaching, that is, what type of professional  coach we need at each moment.   

• Executive  coaching  ,  for example, is aimed at the top managers of companies who want to improve their management.  
• Job  coaching   is done individually to people unsatisfied with their job. Often, routine and lack of motivation can reduce the desire to work.  
• There is also  leadership coaching  ,  which positively boosts the strength and workability of each employee.  
• Team coaching serves to   encourage us, especially in the most critical moments.    
• Innovation coaching increases creativity so that, as its name suggests,  innovation  is continually sought in products and services.  
• And finally, we also have the  organizational one,  which seeks to make communication between employers and workers more fluid.

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