To me, Coaching seems to be like Counselling, and I always preferred Counselling as it deals with providing direct solutions & treatments. But after attending the 2-day diploma session in life coaching at Coach Transformation Academy, I started preferring Coaching over Counselling. Did my mind change, or did I find the difference between Coaching & Counselling? The answer was both: I learned about what basically the Coaching is? How it differs from other disciplines? How it works? How it creates an impact on the client? And most importantly, I gained some life experience.
WHAT IS COACHING? HOW IT DIFFERS FROM OTHER DISCIPLINE?
Coaching is a partnering in which you honor your client. It’s a future & solution-focused approach with a particular code of ethics to be followed. It’s a questioning process rather than advising. Throughout the coaching journey, coach questions in such a way that the client finds his/her solution from his/her own answers. If we talk about other disciplines like training, mentoring, consulting, counseling & therapy, they are either transitional or enhancing processes provided with advising. As far as advising is concerned, you have to be judgmental for the process, but in coaching, a coach is bound to be purely non-judgmental.
Being non-judgmental helps in working with coachee’s agenda, single conversation at a time, being focused & creating a safe psychological environment, which is a necessity of the coaching process. Non-judgmental attitude opens you up to more of life’s beauty, positivity, clarity & peaceful mind.
People in this world are undoubtedly different from each other. However, they still share some common habits, likes & dislikes, desires, hobbies, memories, personality traits, etc. these common nodes create rapport (a bridge of responsiveness) between people and, hence, a safe psychological environment.
Coach is the one who cares for his client in the selection of words as words create a world. He thinks accordingly, focuses completely on the client to know the client’s learning style and whether he/she falls under spatial, auditory, or kinesthetic.
LIFE EXPERIENCE
Different activities during the session added to my learnings a lot. The activity of sharing childhood, teenage & life-changing experiences with colleagues gave me some positive vibes. I had also been to the same situation in the past, so I could have done the same as my colleague did. Hence, it added to my learning.
In the 2-day session, I took a personal experience of being coached by Mr. Haris Syed (Coach & Mentor). The session started with the question, tell me about yourself? I suddenly started that there is a war inside me. I am grappled between several problems like instability, dissatisfaction, loneliness, unclear future, confused about career, etc. I don’t know what to do? Where to go? What path to adopt? He started questioning in such a way that I listed my priorities and picked up one to start from. He asked me several questions, and at some of them, I got blank like what to answer? I don’t have any answer, and there was a silent journey for a couple of minutes, but soon after, he asked the same thing in some different patterns to get me to the answer and finally, I got aware of what is in my hand? & what is not? I got a clear picture of how many paths are in front of me and what way it should be best suited. The great thing was I came to know that I already knew the solution to my problem, I was just unable to recognize it. It was an utterly inexpressible feeling.
Afterward, we had a practice coaching session between colleagues of the session. I successfully coached my client, and she found the solution. That moment generated a spark in me that coaching is for me.
My golden learning is, ‘no one in this world has a solution to all your problems, only you have your solutions, but the only thing you need is to recognize it.’
IN A NUTSHELL
Coaching is peering, which deals with the questioning process rather than advising to unblock the client’s potential. It is the only respectable profession that uses a client-driven approach to honor the client as the expert in his/her life. Coach has to abide by the code of ethics, beliefs of excellence, and coaching values.
Coaching is a continuous learning process that adds to the learnings of both: client & coach.
