We all need a little help sometimes. Maybe:

• you don’t feel you have enough time to have fun at the weekends, so you hire a cleaner to do the household chores so you can buy back your time.

• you don’t enjoy gardening but love to sit out in a beautiful garden, so employ a gardener to keep your garden tidy.

• you are a CEO and employ a personal assistant to organise your diary, travel arrangements, meeting notes so you can work on what is most important to the business.

• you want to lose 3 stone in a year so you employ a personal trainer and nutritionist to help you.

You don’t think twice about employing outside support on specific tasks, and know the benefits of doing this. So, why when it comes to coaching is there still a reluctance? Athletes and sports professionals know the benefits of continuous coaching. It would seem ludicrous if an Olympian achieves gold and then sacks their coach because they are top of their game and no longer needs them. Instead they continue to want to improve, beat their own personal best, to keep getting better and to always be the best they can be.

I accept that no-one needs a coach, but generally no-one needs a cleaner, gardener or personal trainer. With the right motivation and mindset you can definitely achieve all of your goals and behavioural changes by yourself. The answers are all within you already, and it is up to you to take the actions. However, with a coach you will achieve your results faster, more efficiently and often exceed your own expectations. How much is it worth to you to achieve your goals?

Accountability

When I asked a client recently why they enjoy coaching so much they explained it was because they are an entrepreneur and our coaching sessions do two things for them: holds them accountable to their business progress and growth, and gives them another professional to discuss things with.

I know the accountability part is the main reason coaching is so effective for me. I don’t want to turn up to the next session not having completed what I had committed to do. Even when I try to play out a really good excuse in the my head, I know it sounds weak, especially against the commitment I had to the task in the last session. So I start to make progress and hold myself accountable for both the results I do and don’t achieve - because there are times life gets in the way, or something is actually far more difficult or time-consuming than you originally planned for! There are teachings in all situations and working with my own coach helps me to take these and learn and grow from them.

Other clients I work with agree with this, stating they know they can achieve things by themselves, but change is hard. Having to check in with someone on a regular basis keeps you focused. Action is the way to implement change and to move forward. A literal definition of a coach is the vehicle to take you from one place to another. It is a journey, it is about movement from where you are to where you want to be. It is not to say that we occasionally don’t take a wrong path, or a more scenic route than was originally imagined, but it is always forward moving and heading in the [general!] right direction.  

Why I hire a coach

And to prove I do practice what I preach, I have hired different coaches over the years to achieve specific results. Most recently I worked with an amazing business and mindset coach, Alex Rudnicka to take my business to the next level. You can read my testimonial here.

I know this stuff, but holding myself accountable for my own progress, and keeping motivated, is difficult. Change can be tough - it is uncomfortable, it is about doing something new and challenging, and it is about being consistent, and I know I needed to be supported to ‘step up’. You may seek coaching to break down the actions required to achieve an outcome, but I find both with clients, and from my own personal experience, it can also be about internal changes in your thinking and mindset. Understanding your own limiting beliefs - often things you are totally unaware of until someone asks that question that shines a spotlight on your blindspot - and the ways you think about something which may not be the most helpful to you, can be hugely liberating when you get that ‘break through’ and what has been [invisibly] holding you back for years has gone. I know how much I value someone holding up that mirror, and asking me those sometimes uncomfortable questions that change how I view a situation or myself.

Return on investment

Investing in a coach is just that - an investment. It is an investment of your money, but it is also an investment of your time, an investment of your energy and an investment in yourself. It is about achieving something you have always wanted to achieve, or developing a skill you have always wanted to develop, or it is about deepening that self awareness to feel truly confident, or removing that limiting belief so you can excel in your career. It is giving yourself permission to explore, to dream, to take action and to make changes that will move you from where you are now to where you want to be. It is having someone to be your cheerleader, your confidant, the person to hold the space for you, as well as to be your accountability partner to ensure you remain on track to achieve your goals.

It is your journey, you are responsible for the outcomes and you do have all the answers within you, but a coach can help unlock this potential, hold you up, and take some of the weight when the uphill paths feel a bit steep. A great coach can keep you moving to that summit, reminding you of the views you so desperately want to see at the top and breaking down the journey into manageable steps so you can get there; compare this to the alternative - you stop and head back down to where you came from as you find it is just too hard to keep going on your own.

If you are ready to achieve your goals, deepen your self awareness and/or make your desired behavioural changes, please feel free to have a nose around my website to see if I might be the coach to help you!