My path

I was recently asked to come up with a blog entry for an alliance I'm part of (Surve), and I thought I'd cross-post it here. This is a bit about my path to becoming a coach.

My path to coaching was rather roundabout. I have an established career as a professional book copyeditor, and for a while I had my own direct sales business as well. After a particularly grueling quarter, I was exhausted and extremely frustrated. I felt like I was doing the same old thing over and over! I started thinking about what I really wanted, and I began to realize that I wanted my work to make a difference in the world, to really have an impact in people’s lives. I was getting tempting little tastes of it, and I decided to ramp that up! The only problem was, I wasn’t sure what path would allow me to do that. Should I find a job somewhere? Go back to school? Try something different? At that point “keep doing what I’m doing” was not an attractive option!

Luckily, I attended the national conference for my sales company and met a wonderful trainer. I was so struck by her enthusiasm and creative ideas that I made a point of going up to her and asking point-blank if there was any way I could work for her! She said, “I need coaches with your experience.” Ding ding ding! The more I thought over this option, the more appealing it was. I could use my strong communication skills (written and oral), combine them with my desire to work with people, and really help clients transform their lives for the better!

I’m very glad that my new mentor insisted that I (along with three other women who wanted to work for her) take an ICF-accredited coach training course through Erickson College. Through this course, I learned the foundation of what true coaching is: supporting the client to unlock his or her own genius! The class gave me powerful tools to help my clients tap their inner strengths and resourcefulness, plus exercises for helping people get unstuck. I learned coaching as based on the core principles of the International Core Federation; I am a member of the ICF and abide by their Code of Ethics. I’ve continued my training as well and am now certified in team coaching. I’ve been able to work as a coach for just over two years, and I’m incredibly honored to support my clients. I take joy in watching them make changes, leading to an even greater transformation.

Coaching vs. Therapy

Yesterday, someone asked me what the difference was between coaching and therapy. A lot of people think that coaching is very similar to therapy or counseling, and it's true that many counselors and therapists are adding coaching skills to support their clients. There is a primary difference, though, and here it is:

Coaching always looks forward, to the future, to getting what the client wants.

Therapy and counseling frequently look backward, to what went wrong in the past, to analysis.

In coaching, I believe my clients are whole, absolutely all right, and already has all the resources they need to succeed. My job is to help them unlock their genius. It's not about "fixing" problems, or blaming and shaming, it's about moving forward to meet goals. A client in crisis (say, any kind of mental health issues or some other trauma) may not benefit from coaching. I am the first to say that I cannot help someone in crisis, and I do refer them to other professionals, as appropriate.

Counseling and therapy tend to look more at what is not whole, what might be broken, or what is in crisis. This is important, and it's complementary to coaching for some clients. Coaching is a powerful method for getting what you want, but it is no replacement for therapy or counseling when these are needed.