Last year, I asked my Facebook group for their definition of the word “coaching”.
Here are some of the answers that I got back:
– “Working with a person to optimize their outcome from a specific experience”
– “Coaching moves a person from a victim/follower mindset to a creator/leader mindset”
– “Coaching facilitates insight”
– “Coaching is like having a personal trainer for your mind”
– “Coaching is holding the space for the client to get messy, get vulnerable, and ultimately step into their own greatness”
– “Coaching is a solution-based process whereby the coach facilitates performance enhancement and also possible skill development while acknowledging the client is the expert in their own life” (I’m not kidding about this one – although this particular coach did tell me that she usually ends up going with “I help people own their sh*t so they can achieve shi*t!”)
Wikipedia isn’t much help, either:
“A form of development in which a person called a ‘coach’ supports a learner or client in achieving in specific personal or professional goal by providing training and guidance. The learner is sometimes called a ‘coachee’”.
If 100 coaches were asked for a definition of the word, 100 different answers would be given (or at least 95)
My definition of coaching is simple:
It’s helping someone get from Point A to Point B.
If you’re looking for clarity on what it is that you do, try asking yourself a question that Sean Kemp asks.
In a recent interview that he did, he recommended that coaches ask themselves:
“What’s the major problem that I solve?”
That’s a good way of framing it and helpful for articulating what you do.
If you’re looking to increase the confidence around your coaching business, you’ll want to watch the live training that Sean and I are doing this Thursday.
I got a sneak peek of it, and he knows his stuff (and isn’t afraid of sharing it).
You can register for it here:
