15 July 2023 The meaning of Coaching in the metaphor of the journey
Coaching is like a journey: Coach and Client are partners
You say Coach and the first thing that comes to mind is the Coach who leads to physical development and strengthening in sports.
Out of the sports environment, the word Coach then refers to a professional that supports learning and positive personal evolution.
To understand better this, I like to recall the travel metaphor and define the coach as a Travel Partner. In Coaching in fact, take place an exploratory path to achieve progressive new discoveries and self-knowledge, a real journey and a final destination in which to find new awareness.
Coach and customer realise a mutual agreement to achieve shared goals, but with different responsibilities and purposes. These responsibilities further clarify as the process progresses: the coach guiding the process, the customer focused on the result they want to achieve.
The coach brings all his attention to the customer to let him take his own steps towards what he wants to be and achieve in the future.
The beginning of the Coaching journey .
Yes, but what are you looking for in the end, through the Coaching process?
There are many reasons to start a coaching course and in my experience as a coach I can mention the following:
- clarify a different way to look or do something when feeling stuck
- enhance skills of which you may seem unaware
- unravel a tangle of doubts and uncertainties
- make a decision that in a specific moment seems difficult
- regain confidence in one's own resources to face a personal challenge
- solve a problem
- achieve anything human beings can imagine to reach, do or feel...
The stages of the journey
The coach asks many questions to stimulate reasoning, emotions and the emerging of different ways of thinking and, through feedback, gives back, like a mirror the information learned in the conversation.
In the dialogue can also happen to go through moments of discouragement and bewilderment and it is precisely in such moments that the coach helps to find again the compass, in order to reach the defined destination.
Journey discoveries
On his journey, the customer progressively learns to:
- enter with curiosity into a journey of discovery, to live an important personal experience, together with the support of the coach;
- become more flexible and tenacious;
- achieving awareness to overcome worries, prejudices, limiting thoughts, misperceptions, misunderstandings and everything that prevents healthy communication with others;
- bring his attention on careful listening to oneself and one's identity.
Like in a journey, also in the Coaching process, one begins by organizing one's thoughts on the itinerary to be followed, and then, along the way, it happens that when the coach returns the feedback on what the Client has expressed, these thoughts appear as photographs, that clearly highlight the stages and progress made, the steps in learning and it is possible to dwell together on the experience of change and evolution.
Once new awareness is reached, it is the right moment to enjoy the time being and appreciate the new landscape.
The end of the Coaching journey .
The Coaching process always ends with the discovery of the 'possibility' and the feeling of trust than what one deeply desires to achieve.
An awareness is a point of no return, from there one can only move forward....
Each person can train their ability to consciously steer their choices in a new direction and give themselves a positive future perspective.
The coach supports this individual training and above all the decisive moment of the transition from the present to the future, from a state of doubt and dissatisfaction to one of concrete, different realization.
Once the destination is reached, the journey ends and the Coaching process has a precise term.
The important thing, however, is not to arrive at the destination but to benefit from what happens along the way and as we move in the direction we have chosen to pursue our goals.
Another journey can start in the future, when the desire for further discoveries returns.
I said that the professional coach professional asks a lot of questions, so I am also addressing some questions to you who are reading me ....
Have you ever met a coach?
What has been your coaching experience?
What other metaphors can you think of to express your idea of coaching?
Do you want to tell me about it?... Hopefully we'll meet soon!