How would you know if you were really ready for coaching?

Not everyone is coachable right now. So how would you know if you were?

Coaching is for people who:

• are healthy and safe enough to focus on learning

• are present enough with their emotions to have some intelligence from that data

• are OK enough to allow themselves development space

• are open enough to change that they can get curious about doing things differently

• have enough available funds / income to pay the fees for the expert help acquired.

If you are reading this list and realise you are not coachable right now there are many other forms of support that may be more suitable: counselling, citizens advice, community volunteers and helplines, as well as therapeutic settings.

Or you may recognise that now is just not the right time for you, and that is OK!

You should definitely not take coaching up because you feel pressured to do so. On the other hand, someone suggesting coaching to you might be just the impetus you needed to finally enter the learning arena with someone who can challenge you safely and supportively.

You will notice in the list above, I say “enough”, rather than “perfectly”, or “always”. I like to work with human beings, rather than robots, you see 😊

There are a range of situations for which my coaching is suggested, and here are some of them, which have come up recently:

• a pivotal moment when you know you need to encompass a lot of complexity in your thinking

• a need to unlock further leadership potential for the challenge you are facing

• to identify and achieve a specific professional or legacy goal

• to modify an aspect of behaviour, attitude or character

• to use the raised climate consciousness in your stakeholder groups to do something radical

• to enhance important relationships, influence and enjoyment of these

• to build greater self-confidence, assertiveness, strategic thinking

• for balancing daily priorities, self-development and career development

• to learn from conflict and find a way to get to healthier relations with colleagues

• for balancing climate consciousness and business adaptation with business development, industry leadership and economic imperatives.

Coaching is an intensive development experience and complements other learning approaches. If you haven't taken part in workshops, courses or reading and podcasts, it may be beneficial to start your exploration there (virtually, at present) before undertaking coaching.

Coaching is driven from your agenda, so know why you want coaching, and what you want as a result, at least enough for your coach to understand your direction of travel!

You will need to carve out time to really think about the conversations, and choose actions or decisions that are different, to get the full benefit. Are you ready?

If you begin at the right time for you, it will make all the difference. Coaching has repeatedly been shown to give high returns on investment in research.