What Is Coaching?
Coaching is a powerful tool for personal and professional growth, helping individuals achieve their goals, fulfil their potential, and improve their overall well-being. Whether you’re looking to manage stress more effectively, build resilience, or explore other areas of personal development, coaching provides the structure and support you need to succeed.
In this section, we will explore:
A summary of coaching
My approach to coaching
What is Stress Management Coaching?
How work-life balance works in practice
The flexibility of coaching
Looking for a deeper dive in to what coaching is? Check out my article on the details of how coaching works and what the benefit is, including practical examples and a case study:
Read more: What Is Coaching?
A summary of coaching
Coaching can be called the bridge between where you are and where you want to be. It can be called the streetlights that illuminate your journey. In the very simplest terms, coaching is a tool that helps you identify what you want to change, and helps you make that change.
I like to see myself as my clients’ very own GPS for their lives, helping them get to where they want to go. I’m not here to drive the car for you, and I’m not even here to decide the destination. But what I can do is help you make sure you get to where you’re going in the fastest, most efficient, and most empowering way possible.
Coaching is also primarily forward-facing. This means that, while it’s important to understand your circumstances, the focus of coaching isn’t to ruminate on the past. Coaching looks at where you want to go and puts together a plan to help you get there. It helps you to identify what strengths you have that will help you unlock your potential, and what barriers might be in the way of your success, and how you can overcome them.
This marks coaching out as separate from, say, counselling, mentoring or therapy. Each of these talking services can provide immense value, but they have to be utilised in the correct context. If you’d like to know more about the differences between coaching, counselling, mentoring and therapy, I have written an article on that topic.
Read more: Coaching vs. Counselling vs. Therapy vs. Mentoring.
If you’re looking to understand coaching in more depth, I have an article that explains the coaching process with real-life examples that goes in to more detail. You can find it here:
Read More: What Is Coaching?
If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, check out my Services page to see my fees, or Contact Me to book your free, no-obligation 30-minute Discovery Call today!
My approach to coaching
I am what is called a “client-led” coach. In practice this means I spend time truly understanding a client’s circumstances, and understanding the importance of where they want to go. My experience has told me that by investing the time to make sure we understand what problems we are hoping to overcome, we are more likely to provide solutions that can stand up to scrutiny.
This, to me, is the most critical issue for us to overcome. Having the intent to change is great, but without follow through it can be at best misguided, and at worst demotivating. Any plans you put in place need to be exciting and motivating, but also realistic. There is no point in coming up with exciting plans that fall away as soon as life takes over. We have to build a plan that takes in to account your circumstances, your strengths, and your barriers. They are all relevant, and none of them are insurmountable.
It’s also important to ensure any plans we create will stand the test of time. Success for me is when my clients no longer need me. I’ll love helping you on your journey, but the most pride I will get is when you feel able to confront your challenges without me, safe in the knowledge that I am always here, always behind you, always ready to pick up again if things get tough.
If this approach sounds like it’d align with your needs, check out my Services page to see my fees and how to book an initial session. Read more: Services.
What is Stress Management Coaching?
Stress, unfortunately, is unavoidable.
Few everyday occurrences have such potential to limit our ability to live our lives as stress does. Every person on the planet faces some kind of stress every single day. Stress is our body’s response to change, to the unknown, or to fear. We all experience that feeling daily. Sometimes, stress can be healthy; it can motivate us to take action and stay alert. However, when we feel overwhelmed by stress, we become less resilient and make poorer decisions.
This doesn’t mean we can’t have any control over it. While we can’t make stress go away, we can control how we respond to it.
The hardest part of dealing with stress is that it’s different for every person. You and I could be in the same stressful situation at the same time, but we will respond differently. Why? Because we have different backgrounds, values, beliefs, circumstances, and personalities.
That is where Stress Management Coaching comes in. Stress Management Coaching accepts that we can’t eliminate stress altogether, and that we have to approach stress in a way that works for us individually. We accomplish this in the following ways:
Identify what is causing you stress: We explore your circumstances to understand the sources of your stress.
Understand your responses: We delve into why you respond to stress the way you do, considering your unique background and personality.
Create a plan for balancing your “Stress Management Bank Account”: We identify how to limit withdrawals (stressors) and encourage deposits (stress-relief activities).
Stress Management Coaching provides the structure and support you need to manage stress effectively, build resilience, and improve your overall well-being. By understanding your unique stressors and responses, we can develop personalised strategies to improve your work-life balance, and to help you navigate life's challenges with greater ease.
Are you looking to get control over the stresses in your life? Check out my Services Page to understand what I offer, or get in touch using this Contact Form.
How work-life balance works in practice
You may have seen my slogan, “Work, Life, and Balance”.
People usually call the phrase “work-life balance”. But I’ve always had a problem with that expression.
When people talk about “work-life balance”, it’s usually defined by these two unspoken rules:
Our time is made up of two states, “work”, and “life”. In practice, that often means we are either “working”, or “not working”.
The balance between the states of “work” and “non-work” is one of time. The goal is often expected to be spending less time “working”, and more time “not working”.
I don’t agree with this, and I think this is why we often struggle to find the balance we are looking for. We aim to decrease our time “working” and increase our time “not working”, and then wonder why we don’t feel better when we start leaving work fifteen minutes earlier each day. Or, worse, we realise that we can’t spend less time working and more time doing whatever we consider “living”.
This is why I’ve began focusing on my own concept of “Work, Life, and Balance”. It’s a small change, but an important one. “Work, Life, and Balance” is about the following rules:
It’s Not About Time
Even if we want to spend less time working, how much time we spend at work is often outside our control. After all, the job still needs to get done, right? We can’t be governed by how much time we spend doing things, it’s how we use the time we have that counts.
Rather than trying to do less work, ask yourself “what does work mean to me?” Is it simply a way to pay the bills? Is it something you believe in? Do you get your identity from it? There are no right or wrong answers, but you have to know what you want work to be in order to know what you need to change.
Make Work, Work For You
When it comes to having a better quality of life, we have to focus on what our life actually involves. But quality of life doesn’t necessarily mean doing more. It’s about knowing what living means to you. It’s about identifying what matters, what brings you energy, what makes you happy, and trying to do more of it.
Life Is For Living
Life is always moving. Circumstances change. What worked a year ago may not work any more. To get better balance in our lives, we have to be prepared to make changes to meet where we are right now. We can’t change time, but we can change what we do with our time, and with that change comes better balance.
Balance Is Change
I know, it’s easier said than done. But it’s by no means impossible, and I’ve worked with countless people who have got there. In the words of one, “you’ve given me my life back”. It is possible to find this balance, believe me.
If this speaks to you, great. Let’s get in touch through this link and see how I can help.
The flexibility of coaching
The great thing about coaching is how flexible it is. It can just as easily help you find a new job after a redundancy as it can help you to make new friends. The principles stay the same throughout; it’s about where you want to go, and how you will get there.
As a client-led coach, one thing I notice is how often people’s direction changes. Many come to me with a specific goal in mind, such as gaining a promotion at work. But once we start to dig in to it further, some start to realise that obtaining a promotion isn’t actually what they are looking for after all. Maybe it is to feel less stressed. Maybe it is to feel like they aren’t stagnating. It can be anything, but once we hold their original plan up to scrutiny it falls apart, and a new, more important goal comes to light. And that’s a good thing! Following through on a plan that doesn’t speak to you any more is not a good use of your time or energy.
I also have plenty of clients who come to me without knowing where they want to go. They can tell that life isn’t where they want to be, but how can you tell what will ultimately solve that? That’s where being a client-led coach can become so powerful, because we can spend the time really exploring your circumstances, your preferences, your habits, your dreams, your barriers. We can put them altogether using an extensive range of tools to identify what it is that feels like it needs the most attention, and then work together to get there.
So if you think you need help, but not with stress management, that’s no problem. I’ve helped clients with finding a new job, getting a promotion, finding fulfilment in a more balanced life, improving their self-esteem, becoming more organised, starting a Master’s Degree, learning to drive, learning a new language, moving abroad, and many, many other topics. As I’ve said throughout this site, coaching is about you.
If you think you’re ready to give coaching a try, you can check out my Services page for my prices, or you can get in touch using this Contact Form to discuss anything that might be on your mind.
