Uncovering your true potential: Why coaching could be your next step to success
Coaching is a developmental process in which a trained coaching expert supports and advises someone through their personal journey of growth, whether it's developing their skills and attitude in the workplace or figuring out their best route through difficulties they may be facing in their everyday life. The aim is to maximise the client's everyday performance in order for them to fulfil their true potential.
The importance of coaching
A UK study in 2019 of 2,000 22-38-year-olds found that 8 in 10 young adults felt they were not good enough due to everyday pressures, including love life, work life, and overall inadequacy. With numbers like these, it's no wonder why industries like coaching have become so popular. Fighting personal battles alone can often be overwhelming, and the need for a helping hand at some point may be necessary.
50-year-old Kathryn Mitchell, a certified life coach, highlights the importance of industries such as coaching, stating,” Coaching for me is all about personal growth and movement. It's about identifying where you're at in the moment and being able to look for opportunities to be able to move forward”.
How it works
A client will often reach out to a coach with a list of specific goals they are looking to achieve; from there, a coach will zero in on these desired results to then form an achievable plan in which their client can best take back control over their objectives. This successful system is summarised by 59-year -old sales coach John Phillips, who stated, “A seller or sales leader will come with a very specific performance gap, either that being with a customer or the business in general, and we then work with them on solving that very specific thing.”
Coaching effectiveness
Coaching is helping people around the world become more self-sufficient and confident in their future endeavours and challenges. A great example of this is a major tech organisation that was mentored by John Philips.
(59-year-old John Phillips)
The company was already thriving financially by catering to requests and issues directly brought up by clients. However, the manager noticed a missed opportunity for greater profitability, complaining, “We were leaving money on the table,” as the company was too hyperfixated on addressing immediate client requests and in return missing the bigger picture. Instead of just focusing on surface-level problems, John encouraged the company to delve into the deeper challenges clients may potentially be dealing with: “We had three sessions with each salesperson over a number of weeks, focusing them down on the specific things each unique customer could be struggling with.”
Through coaching the sales team on how best to identify and approach these deeper struggles, the company was then able to unlock significant additional revenue streams.
Another significant example is one of Kathryn's clients, a CEO, who, for the first time in their life, finally felt comfortable in communicating about their true feelings that they previously felt they couldn't express freely. Kathryn was able to help them identify their emotions and plan a method in which he was able to overcome them and reach his full potential. “I could sort of see the shock on their face, and actually what was happening was they were really developing their self-awareness, thinking about working on their emotional intelligence, which actually enabled them to connect with other people far better.”
Is coaching for you?
There are plenty of different styles and methods of coaching to help with a plethora of different issues, from being coached on improving your work life all the way to being coached on flourishing in your love life, meaning there's a coach out there for everyone! For more information on the different types of coaching and how they may be beneficial to your life, visit https://www.betterup.com/blog/types-of-coaching.