Why Coaches Need a Coach

You are a coach. You’ve trained to become a coach, and you’ve worked to master your art as a coach. Your coaching practice is going well and you feel good about your ability to help your clients create the space where they can uncover and explore new possibilities for action, shift their emotions, and move into new territories.

Terrific. Good for you. Well done.

Or maybe not; keep reading. There is much here for you too.

Your clients are coming to you seeking deep change. Perhaps looking to create something they have always longed for, or to achieve something they have always wanted to achieve. They have great hope, and they are looking to you to help them to get where it is they want to be.

But these important questions remain:

• How are you doing?
• How satisfied are you with how you are living your life?
• How satisfied are you with aspects of your work?
• Have you achieved for yourself and in your own ways, the very things your clients seek?
• Have you done the work on yourself that you are helping them to do for themselves?
• Are you growing, not only as a coach but in your humanness?

It was through being coached that I became a coach. I began working with a coach in 2011 and I am still working with that coach some 7 years later.

Why do I share this with you? I share this with you because I believe, from the core of who I am as a person and as a coach, that if I am not continuing to work with a coach, I am doing my clients and myself a disservice. A disservice? That’s a strong statement.

I believe that if I am to grow as a coach, I must continue to work with a coach to continue to grow as a person so that I can grow as a coach.

My coach, Geoff Davis of Conversations, has been a coach for 20 years, and he has worked with his coach since 2004 when he began his Newfield training. Geoff puts it this way:

“The essence of coaching is being able to be in a relationship with others that generates trust, holds a safe space to explore whatever is on their agenda, asks powerful questions that enable them to generate their own answers so they can create the kind of living that they seek.  In order to do that well, you have to have someone doing that for you so you can create the kind of coaching you want to create.” 

Because of my continued work with my coach, I have created a life and a coaching practice on my terms—a fully satisfying and highly successful coaching practice that is changing lives. I am continually mastering the practices, tools, and frameworks of ontological coaching by experiencing them first hand, consequently deepening my learning.

Because I am continually learning about myself, I am continually seeing through new eyes. I am continually challenging my own ways of seeing, examining biases and assessments, and uncovering my own stumbling points.

My clients have in front of them an individual whom they trust—someone they know believes deeply in what coaching can do for them because she continues to experience it for herself. They see someone who has achieved a “way of being” for herself that she otherwise could not have done without the help of a coach, and in that, they find hope and possibility. Imagine the power this has on a client when they are feeling vulnerable or without hope?

Being a coach is not about having the right answers. It’s not knowing how to coach that will ultimately make the difference between being a good, intuitive coach and a highly successful and infinitely wise coach. What matters is whether or not you are investing in yourself and becoming the best you, so that you can help your clients become the best them.

Don’t underestimate the power that your “way of being”—not only in the coaching session but in the deepest parts of your being—has on your ability to help your client reach their greatest potential.

If you believe in the power of coaching, how can you not work with a coach and create the conditions for a fully satisfied life? If you have not yet invested in yourself by working with a coach, now is a great time to start.

Looking for life coach training or personal development courses? Check out our Foundation Course for transformative personal development training and the first step towards becoming a Certified Coach.

About the Author: 

I help people create satisfaction and achieve extraordinary results in their lives and careers. From career transitions to creating a new pace or a more satisfying way of living, my clients will attest that “coaching will change your life!” As a Leadership and Executive coach, I dedicate my work to helping leaders lead from the core of who they are, fully aligned with their values. I work with leaders to create cohesive teams whose visions are clear, and whose collaborations are healthy and functional.