[This User’s Guide to Coaching series explains everything you need to know to successfully engage and work with a coach—a life coach, a creativity coach, an executive coach, any sort of coach. It accompanies Dr. Maisel’s latest book, The Coach’s Way, described as “the finest resource available for anyone who wants to develop or enrich their coaching abilities.” Grab your copy now!]
You may think that therapy is the place where you get to be psychological and coaching isn’t. But everything human has a psychological component.
If, for instance, you’re afraid that your sadness or your anxiety are going to get in the way of you achieving your goals, then by all means talk about that with your coach. It isn’t that your coach will “diagnose and treat” you. Absolutely not! That isn’t their mandate, their expertise, or even something they necessarily believe in. But your coach will listen, be interested, and understand that anything that stands between you and your goal is worth exploring.
Say that anxiety is a regular problem for you. Your coach might say, in response to hearing about this issue, “Since you pretty much know that anxiety is going to get in the way, what would you like to do about that?” That may not be an easy question for you to answer but it is an appropriate question to be posed to you. Your coach won’t say, “Do this.” But she may well say, “What would you like to try?” As part of her mandate to be wise and real, she will understand that brushing such an issue aside or colluding to never speak about it aren’t good options.
She might even say, “Have you ever thought about this?” That is, she may have some thoughts and suggestions, maybe because she has specialized training and believes that communicating what she’s learned might help you. For example, maybe she’s a trained yoga teacher, hypnotherapist, meditation practitioner, or T’ai Chi Chih instructor. Maybe she believes that her specialty works well as an anxiety management tool. Wouldn’t she want you to know about that? If she thinks that might help you, why wouldn’t she share that information?
Whether your goal is losing weight, writing a novel, advancing in your career, improving your relationships, rehabilitating after surgery, or finding peace and contentment, psychology must play its part. How could it not? It’s therefore on your shoulders to come to the coaching psychologically-minded and to be aware, for instance, of the difference between “I don’t have the time to work on my novel” and “I feel like I’m fighting with myself about writing my novel.” If what’s going on is the second, you don’t want to turn it into a mere time management issue when it isn’t really. Help your coach understand what’s going on—she can be of greater help if you let her in.
We’ve come to the odd place, in dividing up the helping professions, where we seem to think that it is only in therapy that you get to be psychological. How strange! As if losing weight doesn’t have a psychological side. As if managing employees doesn’t have a psychological side. As if getting up on stage as a professional dancer doesn’t have a psychological side. As if there is anything we do or don’t do that isn’t affected by our fears, our worries, our cravings, our half-conscious wishes. You know that and your coach knows that, too.
Yes, coaching is absolutely not the “diagnosing and treating of mental disorders.” But it is fundamentally and legitimately about being human, which includes our psychological realities. When your coach asks you, “What do you think might get in the way of you achieving the goal you just named?”, she isn’t asking you to limit your response to a challenge like “I don’t have the time.” She is asking you to be real. If you are, then the two of you will work together better. As you approach your first coaching session, be prepared to be psychological.
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“The Coach’s Way is possibly the finest resource available for anyone who wants to develop or enrich their coaching abilities. This new book is designed to give coaches the confidence and structure in their practice that will generate real results for their clients. Any- one who makes a living in the coaching arena will benefit from Dr. Maisel’s tremendous experience and training as a therapist, coach, and human. I’m so glad to have this book as a guide for my own coaching work and will recommend it to many others in the helping professions.”— Jacob Nordby, author of The Creative Cure: How Finding and Freeing Your Inner Artist Can Heal Your Life
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Read Part One Here: The Coach’s Way: User’s Guide to Coaching
Read Part Two Here: Can You Tolerate the Truth?
Read Part Three Here: Can I Collaborate?
Read Part Four Here: Picking a Kind of Helper
Read Part Five Here: Picking Your Coach
Read Part Six Here: Don’t Worry If Your Worldviews Differ
Read Part Seven Here: Check Your Expectations
Read Part Eight Here: Provide Your Coach With Information
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock