I believe that coaching may be the most valuable personal development investment you might ever make. Coaching can help to unlock our potential by addressing how we view ourselves and our confidence level. A coach uses enlightening questions for us to unlock how we see ourselves, and how we picture our future. Once we understand what is influencing our viewpoint, then we can move forward with our goals.
We all have skills and areas we need to improve, and career coaching can help us identify what is holding us back. We all face obstacles in our journey. Your obstacles may be different than mine. My obstacles could also be very imaginary, not real at all, but ones I have made up in my mind. Imaginary obstacles can be the hardest to overcome.
The excuses we carry weigh us down, and then we don’t act. Why are we not going after a goal at 100%? Do we believe someone is going to stop us, so we don’t even try? Do we believe our skills are not good enough? Is our leadership lacking? What happens if someone puts an obstacle in front of us? How do we handle it?
We begin by changing our mindset and world view to help us align our goals with positive action. How we think and how we see ourselves directly impacts our success level. A coach can help us be accountable as we write down and plan actions for goal accomplishment.
“Coaching is a not a yes or no question process. It requires deep thinking and honesty about how we process external stimuli.” -Stephen McLain
The best coaching is when we self-discover. A great coach can use tools so we find the answers ourselves, because you must own your path to success. With the help of a coach guiding us in discovering our obstacles and our current mindset, we will begin to build more resiliency to changing our world view.
Using a private coach outside of the office environment (that is, coaching not from a supervisor or other person in your direct leadership chain) provides a comfortable environment, where both parties can share very personal thoughts more easily. When you become vulnerable in figuring out who you are, then you open the door to personal growth and eventually to greater success. An effective coach will not be your friend, because a friend may listen, but a coach will provide necessary critical analysis and fully open accountability so you can see yourself and your circumstances differently.
Are you currently leading a department, business unit or serving as an executive? Personal business coaching can help you with strategy development and implementation, deciding what metrics to use, and establishing personal and team goals. Are you facing a strategic crisis or situation and you would like to use a coach to talk ideas and responses in a private, positive environment?
Please click here to book a free 30-minute Coaching Call with me
Coaching Can Help You Build Your Potential for Career Advancement
Self-discovery through prompting helps us own the process
- Coaching is a not a yes or no question process. It requires deep thinking and honesty about how we process external stimuli
- We can exchange ideas and deep dive into our abilities and skills in a very safe environment
- We can better align our goals as we figure out who we are
- Our coach can ask us to identify the obstacles in our lives
Become more self-aware so we develop our potential
- We all have filters that can create a bias in how we see the world. Coaching can help up identify how bias affects our thinking and perceptions of ideas and the people who we interact with daily
- How is our mindset affecting our potential for success and for excellence? We must believe in our ability to successfully navigate a world of full of problems
- Our potential comes from a combination of our attitude, soft skills, mindset, leadership ability, level of influence and many others
- Coaching can help us to identify areas to improve so our potential for advancement and growth can be more easily realized
Build Confidence and start a paradigm shift
- A positive mindset leads to our belief that we can accomplish tough tasks. Once we successfully accomplish those tasks, we start to build confidence, which then fuels a more positive mindset
- Our confidence is built upon our belief that we can be successful
Goal Setting, Accountability and Accomplishment
- A coach helps us to be more accountable to what we want to accomplish
- Daily, we are faced with a myriad of tasks and problems. Some move us forward and some set us back. How do we navigate these issues? How do we prioritize our actions, so we continue to move forward overall?
Read through this simplified example for how coaching can help you succeed: Ned has been serving as a team manager for over eight years, and he finally realized that he has lost out on some opportunities to go to the next level. He seeks out a friend to ask a few questions about why he hasn’t been offered a promotion. His friend, Mary, asks him what is the key factor that senior leaders have chosen others over him. “I don’t think they like me that much,” was his response.
A career coach in this example would start to probe a deeper answer to Ned’s lack of opportunities. A coach will ask questions until Ned determines on his own what the key problems that have led to him staying in the same position for eight years, and it is most likely not because of some personal hatred for Ned.
How can personal and career coaching help improve your potential for advancement?
Please click here to book a free 30-minute Coaching Call with me
Please click here to book a free 30-minute Coaching Call with me
Please comment or email me at comment@stephenmclain.com.
Copyright 2019 – Stephen McLain
