[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!]
Maybe you’ve done the work I’ve suggested and managed to answer those three questions—that you are willing to do the work, that you can tolerate hearing some hard truths, and that you can collaborate—in the affirmative. Maybe you’ve been in communication with your new coach and shared some basic information. All that remains between you and a first session is you scheduling it. And maybe you’re finding that hard to do. Why is that?
Probably for some obvious, natural reasons. Consider some analogies. Maybe you’ve mentally prepared yourself for a dental exam, a medical exam, a court appearance, a trip to the accountant, or a visit to the in-laws. That doesn’t mean that actually scheduling that charged event will prove easy. Your rational self may be willing to visit the dentist but your phobic self may not. Your brave self may be ready for that medical exam but your frightened self may not. We are conflicted, divided creatures and what our right hand is willing to do our left hand may balk at.
Expect to feel anxious. Expect to feel reluctant. Expect to feel shy about presenting yourself and revealing yourself to another person. Maybe you secretly find it embarrassing, even humiliating, that you need help with your problems. Maybe you’ve trained yourself not to talk about yourself and feel squeamish about opening up. The list of reasons why you may be avoiding scheduling that first session is potentially very long. Even if only one reason on that list is in play, that can be enough to stall you.
Hopefully you can have a conversation with yourself, air this out, sigh, surrender, and schedule your first session. Congratulations if you do! But the challenge hasn’t completely ended. Just out of conscious awareness, you may begin to percolate up reasons for canceling the appointment you just made. You may start saying things to yourself like “I’m much too busy to take time out for a coaching session” or “I hate talking to people over Zoom” or “I think maybe things have gotten a lot better.” Try to see these thoughts for what they are: your nerves coming up with ways to get you out of that first session.
Having scheduled your first session, try not to cancel it as the day approaches. You’ll find it easy to come up with reasons for canceling. To rebut all those, you have one amazing reason for not canceling: that you may actually get the help you need. Set your reminders to help you remember that your coaching session is coming, relax as best you can, and maybe even smile at the prospect of getting some needed help.
When the time comes, have your cup of tea ready, deal calmly with the technology (if it’s a remote call), and appear. Your coach will appear, too. The two of you will smile, greet one another, and begin. Your coaching adventure has started. You will be glad that you didn’t cancel and you may be amazed at where you land by the end of your first session. Fingers crossed that you have a great first session! But even if it isn’t stellar, congratulate yourself on making this effort. You showed up—and that matters.
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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
Read Part Nine Here: Be Prepared to Be Psychological
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock