Individual Coaching, personal and professional development
Individual Coaching
Understand your strengths. Focus your energy. Invigorate your work.
Working with a coach gives you an impartial, safe and supportive space to explore your personal and professional development, reset and refine your goals and move forward with a renewed sense of purpose.
Why should you work with a coach?
Elite athletes, musicians and performers see coaching as a fundamental part of their continuing success. For most of us in other professions, we typically take up training, start our careers and then rely on our managers to provide the guidance we need to help us to grow and succeed.
Sadly, for many of us, the relationship and time we have with our manager simply doesn't allow us to explore the wider context of our lives so that we can achieve a truly holistic view of our goals, drives and behaviour.
There are many different reasons why you might take up coaching:
You're unsure about your goals or dissatisfied with the progress you are making towards them
You have had a change in your career or your position - or one is on the horizon - and you want to continue to succeed, honing your skills for this new context
You're a leader or pioneer in your field - you will benefit from an objective and independent partner who will support you and hold you accountable in your endeavours
You're noticing signs of burnout - the life that brought you so much satisfaction before no longer seems to ‘fit’ - you want to get your verve back.
You have a very specific goal or challenge ahead and you feel that you will achieve more with the support of a trusted advisor
You want to gain a deeper understanding of your motivations and skills for growth - you need support to discover the opportunities that lie ahead
What should you expect?
A unique and personal relationship - this is your journey. We'll spend time understanding the context and what has led up to this point, and we'll check in along the way - we'll create the map together
Private, impartial and objective support - coaching will provide a safe space to understand the complex and difficult issues that we can often feel inhibited to confront with a manager, colleague or employer
A structured and thoughtful process - I don't use a fixed curriculum or agenda but I do use a structured, iterative approach to personal development: we will establish and refine the most effective ways of supporting you throughout the coaching process - using your expertise of your situation, and my experience
Compassion and accountability with a focus on outcomes - at the core of our work will be understanding your goals and objectives, and putting into place the strategies that will enable you to achieve these. Change can be a difficult and emotionally complex process - at all times we will keep the person that you are at the centre of our work together: working with your strengths, building up your foundations, celebrating your achievements whilst being frank and supportive of the challenges you face -a coaching journey is a learning journey.
Practicalities - how does individual coaching work?
We'll have an introductory session - to understand what's brought you to consider coaching, to get a high level understanding of your current context and aims and to feel some confidence that we can work together.
We'll set the timing and scope of our initial coaching project. Coaching sessions are 50 minutes and a 12 week ‘block’ of sessions is typically an effective timeframe to set strong, achievable objectives and see positive and permanent change, working through a cycle of development. We will enter into a coaching contract together
We'll usually meet virtually - although in-person sessions can be arranged, where beneficial and practicable
We'll mainly work through dialog - but we will also use whiteboards and thought exercises between sessions - I'll share resources with you to help keep you attuned to your development throughout the coaching journey and beyond
We'll find the most effective time to work together - personal and professional development is work - and your employer should support you in this - they will benefit greatly from the results!
