What is Coaching?
Definition of Coaching
The International Coaching Federation defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximise their personal and professional potential.
Coaching is often confused with other self-help/self-improvement modalities such as counselling or therapy, mentoring, consulting and training. They share common goals in that each aims to help the client to be at a better place at the end of the engagement as compared to when they first embarked on it.
A coach collaborates with the client to create ideas, solutions and goals that are unique to the client based on the client’s own knowledge and expertise.
It’s like a bicycle!
The bicycle analogy is used by the International Coach Academy to explain what coaching is.
A therapist or counsellor works with an individual to recover from his/her past emotional hurts and become emotionally healthy. Their role is to help you deal with any past fears of riding a bicycle.
A mentor shares their knowledge and wealth of experience with a mentee such as stories of their cycling trip around the scenic route of the Isle of Wight.
A consultant will give recommendations and provide solutions for a specific issue raised by the client. They will tell you where to sit on the bicycle, where to put your feet, when to pedal and brake, which route to opt for and the equipment you need to pack for your trip.
A trainer will teach a topic which the student is keen to learn. In this instance, the trainer will teach a lesson on the benefits of riding a bicycle for one’s well-being.
What does a Coach do?
A coach works with a person who is already emotionally healthy to develop greater self-awareness and stronger resilience to face future challenges. A coach partners and supports the client to gain insight from his/her own wisdom and knowledge.
As your Coach, I will:
Listen to your desires and aspirations for your cycling trip.
Explore your ideas on where to buy a bicycle and how you want to learn to ride one.
Check in on your progress of planning your trip and encourage you to keep moving in this direction when you are frustrated.
Be curious to hear about your learnings from the planning and the actual cycling trip.
Support you to develop your strategies to make such cycling trips as regular occurrences in your life!
