Your First Session Begins

Eric Maisel

12 months ago

[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!]

Whatever you were expecting from coaching, now comes reality. There is nothing like reality. Whether or not it registers in words, you will instantly begin appraising and judging your coach, registering him or her as warm or stiff, forthcoming or aloof, and so on, even as you answer questions, tell your story, and establish a way of working together.

Your coach will want to know what’s on your mind, what your goals are, what’s getting in the way of achieving those goals, and where you want to focus. Your coach may say a little or a lot, use their personal experience for reference or refrain from sharing, move what feels like slowly or move what feels like quickly. A lot will be going on simultaneously as you feel things, think things, maybe get defensive, and maybe surprise yourself by something you admit or reveal.

This is a different experience from the passive things you do, like watch television or surf the Internet, the quick-as-a-wink things you do, like text someone back and forth, the solitary self-care experiences you have, like journaling or yoga, and the everyday conversations you have with family and friends, about getting homework done or where to meet for dinner. This is more intense, more alive, and more consequential.

You may have come to the session with an agenda of topics you wanted to cover. Maybe you wanted to talk generally about how your jewelry-making business is stalled. But maybe you also wanted to chat about certain specifics, like how your supposed friends tend not to let you know about the shops, galleries or show they learn about, which makes you feel both alienated and foolish for considering them friends, and how your website isn’t doing a very good job of supporting your efforts. Maybe you have several more items on your agenda as well. Will you get to everything? We shall see!

If you want to stay longer on a subject, say so. This might sound like, “Can we look at this a little more?” If you feel like you’re spending too much time on a subject, say so. This might sound like, “I think I’m okay with this. There’s something else I wanted to bring up.” If you didn’t quite understand what your coach said or meant, ask. This might sound like, “I didn’t quite get that. Can you pass that by me again?” You have complete permission, or ought to have complete permission, to aim the coaching in the direction that you want it to go, cover the issues you want to cover, question your coach’s rationale for suggesting something, and in general feel equal and in charge.

At the same time, give your coach a chance. He or she may have some good reasons for going down some tributary, making certain suggestions, pressing you on a point, wondering aloud what you meant by what you just said, and in other ways being directive and in charge. You are both in charge, which is at once a lovely and intricate situation. Enjoy that pull-and-tug in the service of getting you the help you require. You are both putting chemicals in the beaker and creating reactions. Settle in and enjoy the lively experiment that is coaching.

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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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