Coaching is still relatively a new phenomenon in South Asia. I have been a coach for the past years and am now a strong advocate of coaching as an amazing tool for personal development. While I have mostly done Executive coaching, I feel that anyone can benefit from coaching. People will go through all sorts of issues and challenges, blaming others, complaining about life, getting stressed about simple things but will not think of getting a coach who can help them get on with life.
Here are some common excuses stemming from incorrect beliefs about coaching.
- Coaching is therapy. I don’t need a shrink.
While a coaching session can be therapeutic, it is not therapy. Coaches don’t work with issues that are best treated by a qualified psychotherapist or psychologist. Coaches don’t deal with issues of mental health like depression, trauma, bi-polar disorder or inferiority complex. Coaches work with whole individuals or what we like to call ‘normal’ people who are functional in their personal and professional lives. You don’t have to be ashamed to say that you are getting some coaching.
- Coaching is for losers. Everything is going well in my life.
Most successful leaders have had some form of coaching in their lives. Star sportsmen need coaches all the time. Everyone can benefit from coaching. Those who have already achieved some success can use coaching to take them to the next level. Everyone faces ‘stuckness’ in some aspect of their lives at some time or the other- one important relationship that is not working, some project that is just not taking off, lack of clarity about what to do next. Coaching helps to sort through these issues.
- Coaching takes up too much time. I am too busy right now.
How much time do we spend watching TV, gossiping, shopping for things we don’t need and lying around complaining about the world? Coaching is one of the most efficient ways of improving and enhancing the quality of our lives. People do take time out for physical fitness by running, going to the gym or taking up a sport. But we hardly give any time to our mental and emotional well being. A coaching session usually last for 60 to 90 minutes. Two hours a month with a good coach is enough to make a world of difference. I have seen significant results from just 10 hours of investment over 4-5 months.
- Coaches just give advice. I don’t need any more of that.
The one thing coaches DON’T do is give advice. Your parents, spouse and friends do enough of that. A coach asks questions that no one else does, listens to you without any personal agenda, shows you the mirror and allows you to choose the options that work best for you. A good coach will challenge you and hold you accountable to your commitments. One of my coaches likes to use the question – ‘If I were in your place, what advice would you give me?’
- Coaching must be expensive. I can’t afford it now.
But you could afford that meal in an expensive restaurant, a new designer dress that you will not wear more than once, that holiday in a luxurious resort, all things that make you feel good in the moment. Coaching is an investment that can change our life for the better. I am surprised to find organizations willing to invest millions to fly in some international expert for a one day session but reluctant to spend a few thousands to set up a coaching program for their employees. According to the ICF Global Coaching Client Study commissioned by the International Coach Federation, individual clients reported a median ROI of 3.44 times their investment in coaching.
People who are serious about their career and life, get a coach. So get some coaching , because you are worth it.
