Why coaching helps eliminate the noise
If you want advice on navigating a work / life dilemma, there are multiple sources accessible at your fingertips. From YouTube to podcasts to blogs, hours are easily spent consuming media containing top tips, examples from others’ experiences and signposts out to further resources that may help. Not to mention people in your network as a source of advice…(which may not always be solicited).
Coaching offers none of that. Coaching offers no top tips, answers or advice. Often, coaching offers no subject matter expertise. So why is it so powerful?
Coaching helps you examine your dilemma and look for your answers that align with your values. It does not involve the passage of advice from one to another. It is a process that helps internal solutions crystallise according to the conditions specific to you. And that is why it is so powerful. It is a process that requires a high degree of engagement from the coachee to be successful. It is hard work and, when facilitated well it is impossible to slip through the net via low engagement or faux engagement. The most likely outcome if a coachee experiences some ambivalence towards the process is that coaching is iced until the right time comes along. And sometimes that is the right thing to do.
Good coaching is a neutral and safe yet highly responsive and sharply tuned sounding board. It will help you distil your own answers and when really effective, may even train you to find and implement the sounding board internally to deploy when you need it in future. You have to be ready to share openly, listen to yourself being honest, zoom out on issues to see your bigger picture even when one part of it seems to dominate, and use your value system to prioritise where to invest your resources.
Coaching provides the time, space and facilitation to mobilise thought processes that are increasingly difficult to access amongst the noise of day to day life. The solutions reached through coaching are more powerful and more relevant than anything a consultant could tell you. That’s because the value is in the internal work.