The Benefits of Coaching; Professionally and in Personal Development
There are numerous benefits people can gain from the experience of coaching, both professionally and in personal development. Increasing numbers of people are seeking the help of a Life Coach as a tool for self development.
The role of a coach is to help a client evaluate where they are in their life and identify changes or personal goals they want to make and then support them through the process. The client profits by gaining motivation, direction and focus and is able to take control over one’s life. As a result, the client experiences improvement in their relationships with others, quality of life and overall fulfilment and happiness.
What is coaching?
“The ICF defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.
Coaching sees the client as the expert in his/her life and work and believes that every client is creative, resourceful, and whole.
Based on this, the coach's responsibility is to:
- Discover, clarify, and align with what the client wants to achieve;
- Encourage client self-discovery;
- Elicit client-generated solutions and strategies; and
- Hold the client responsible and accountable.
Professional coaches provide an ongoing partnership designed to help clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. Coaches help people improve their performances and enhance the quality of their lives.”
The benefits of coaching in the workplace:
The use of coaching has been common practice in the workplace for some time. Used commonly within large corporate companies and within executive environments. Recent changes in the economy and businesses have caused an increase in downsizing and restructuring in the workplace. For companies this has highlighted the issues employees face during this time of change and the potential benefits coaching can bring. Fear surrounding job security, high pressures to perform, and competition at work cause greater stress to employees. Companies have commonly used the services of Coaches to help their employees during this transition of change.
Coaches work with the employee to evaluate their career goals, discover motivational factors, and values. The employee gains the benefits of having direction and focus and the employer has a happier more productive and satisfied employee.
Understanding both one’s own motivational factors and those of your co-workers or employees can have a huge impact on how we work together and the results can increase job satisfaction and productivity. Managers can use coaches to understand how best to motivate and support their workers. The coach can help to be the middleman in the “employer-employee” relationship, acting as a “third party,” to improve relationships within the company, reduce stress in employees and increase productivity.
In the same way an employer has a performance review with an employee, to establish the employee’s progress, performance, goals at work, and achievements, people commonly use life coaching for personal development.
The benefits of coaching in personal development:
People often desire change in their lives but don’t know how to go about putting it into action. A coach can use effective structures and tools to guide clients through the journey and support them along the process.
Life coaching for personal development is about looking at a client’s future rather than assessing the past. It can bring opportunities to re- boot long lost desires and re-awaken dreams, bringing a refreshing new direction and purpose to a client’s life or old passions back to life.
A life coach can help a client to re establish personal goals and by providing encouragement and motivation. By clarifying the client’s values, the coach and client work together, towards really living by them.
What are values?
Values determine our individual identity. Like our DNA they are unique and determined by a number of outside forces. Values are influence by your upbringing, culture, family, friends, environment, and relationships. They are built in us through our life experiences. Our top values are the things that are most important to us in our lives. Not materialistic things such as money for example, however achievement or success may be a value, which lead to having money. Money is also a resource if ones value is “living life to the full,” fun, security or stability.
When a person lives by their values, honours them and their importance, there is resonance, joy, and happiness present in their life. When we are not living by our values there is dissonance, frustration, lack of fulfilment and unhappiness.
By holding the client accountable, “sticking to their word” the coach empowers the client to make the changes they truly want.
Parents and families can also benefit from life coaching. Finding themselves caught up in their children’s lives they somehow lose sight of their own goals and dreams and are unfulfilled. Using the help of a coach, parents can re awaken lost goals and bring direction and focus back into their lives. The coach supports and guides you through the process of re establishing your values and then guides you through the changes or steps you want to take. The increased level of fulfilment in the parent has a ripple effect on the rest of the family and the relationships, improving the overall quality of family life.
A journey of life coaching for personal development doesn’t have to be a long, expensive process. Most clients find a period of 6 months is enough time to evaluate, make concrete changes or achieve goals, and reap the benefits. Then, they find they have the skills and tools to continue the journey alone. So if you find yourself in need of some personal development or have loss of purpose and direction in your life, maybe you need the services of a Life Coach to help you along your way.
Written by Rachel Suckle
