ARTICLES by Barbara

Do You Need a Personal or Professional Coach?

In many cases, the answer is yes. Coaches provide an ongoing partnership to support their clients in their personal and professional lives. Through conversation and directed dialogue, coaches help their clients to become aware of their own thoughts and beliefs as well as recognizing their unique skill sets, resources, and creativity.

Clients include executives, managers, and teams of persons who work in a business or corporation, although the coaching includes many areas of thought and endeavor in addition to business.

We often think that what we need is outside of ourselves. What coaching helps reveal is our own magnificent ability to invent a future that transcends our past views and limitations. Coaching cuts through the excuses we give for not being or doing what we want and need.

“If only I had more money. If only I had more time. If only my employees were loyal and committed. If only the community gave me more support. If only business were better. If only I had less stress. If only I could be more proactive.”

What is your “if only”? Is it in the area of your business? Your relationships? A hobby or activity you would like to begin? Does it concern your health and well-being? What is your “if only”?

What is the reason you give for not fulfilling that “if only”? Has that reason become a habit? Have you used it before? Is it the truth? Or is it merely a belief? Do you experience your beliefs as being real? Coaching will help you distinguish between beliefs and reality.

People who take a coach often become more productive and successful in their lives. After all, successful people understand the power of learning and of being open to what’s missing. A coach will help a person see opportunities where none seemed to exist. The result is a sense of being alive and in love with life.

Professional athletes no matter how good they are have a coach. Why? A coach can see what the athlete can’t see while in the game. In the game of life we all have blind spots. Areas that are as invisible as the air we breathe. When we can learn to see that something is missing—not wrong, but missing—we can begin to take action. The missing piece becomes an opportunity to unleash a powerful future.

A personal/professional coach honors the values of the individual or business culture he or she works with. The goal is to keep the client on track and focused. The coach is an ally committed to the clients results.

The results can be deeply rewarding. Like those times in life when everything seems to be working, when we feel accomplished, motivated, of service and loved. Like magic.