If you knew there was one action you could take that would accelerate your success, help you gain clarity and focus, and challenge your assumptions, would you do it? Athletes are not the only group of people hiring coaches. Hiring a coach is one of the pivotal actions you can take in achieving your goals. More and more individuals are working with coaches internally within an organization or externally so that they can get promoted, grow their business, and get unstuck where they may be sabotaging their own success.
Reasons why you should hire a coach:
1. You are more likely to achieve your goals. When working with a coach, a coach will help you create an action plan and hold you accountable to what you say you will do. A coach does not do the work, you do. The belief is that everything you need is already inside of you – you need the coach to ask the right questions. You will develop greater clarity and become more focused on what you need to do to achieve the results you want. Let’s face it. Some people are intrinsically self motivated but most people will fall into patterns of procrastination or jump into the next best thing leaving plans or projects started and unfinished or worse – not started at all.
2. A coach can offer a fresh unbiased perspective. Coaches often see what you cannot see because you are in the midst of your situation. Family, friends, and colleagues may have their best interest at heart and offer advice or share their concerns as they do not want you to fail. They may not have experienced the power of working with a coach and how asking questions can get you out of your own way when you default to old habits. They themselves may be holding themselves back by not taking a risk in their own development.
3. A coach can challenge you to stretch out of your comfort zone and help you see your blind spots. Coaches hold a safe place to challenge your assumptions and potentially challenge you to take actions that make you feel uncomfortable (only because it is against the grain of how you routinely do things). These challenges are to empower you and for you to start to discover how much more potential you have inside of you – if you would only tap into it.
4. You will achieve your goals faster than if you did it all by yourself. A coach will help guide you and help you decide what goals are most important to you. One or two sessions may work for some people but for others they may need up to 6 or more because they have new goals to work on or other issues surface that are sabotaging their success. One thing I have learned in being coached myself, you need to actively participate and trust the process.
5. Coaches can act as a sounding board or share in brainstorming new ideas. I have had clients say that it was great to have someone to share what was on their mind without any judgments and to share ideas that would not be taken for their own use and promotion.
6. Coaches create a confidential safe environment. You are able to get further ahead when you feel safe to be vulnerable enough to share your audacious goals or sticky situations that you need help with. By having this environment, you are able to dig deeper and come out stronger than ever before.
7. Coaches can celebrate your successes with you. They know how hard you have been working on achieving your goals. A coach can help you stop in the moment to “really smell the roses” and pay attention to your successes. Too often, people reach a success and they are already off and running to the next action on the to-do list. Take time to stop and acknowledge your success; it builds momentum and keep you motivated.
Coaching can be a transformational experience if you are willing and open to the possibilities that lie in store. The future is bright!
If you are interested in working with a coach or learning more about what coaching can do for you, contact Debra