Working with a coach (Part 2) – shifting your default future

I ‘get’ coaching.

It’s an amazing privilege to stretch a person or a team to achieve what they would not have previously thought possible.

“Coaching comes from the world of sports and the arts, where athletes and actors receive coaching so that their work will become extraordinary instead of just okay” Steve Chandler, Author and Coach.

Coaching is for healthy functioning people who want to achieve bigger, better, different results. It’s about realising a bigger future. Therapy or counselling is for those who are not coping, hurting emotionally and who want to heal from difficulty, usually in their past.

I am a coach not a counsellor.

When I say I ‘get’ coaching I mean I know its power having seen my clients’ remarkable results over the last twenty years. I also get coaching in that I have a coach, actually I have four:

Alison coaches me in the technicalities of coaching – she helps me develop approaches and concepts that I then use with my clients to raise their awareness and responsibility for some particular aspect of performance.

For the last three years Trish has been my ‘supervisor’ – she is the person I go to when I am stuck or delighted with my work. She helps me stay grounded and centred; I love coaching executives and teams though it is demanding. Trish helps me maintain form.

Salka has been my swimming coach since 2013. She is now coaching me to complete a 10k open water swim next year in an hour faster than I did this year. Neither of us knows how I am going to do that though it’s possible and we are both up for the challenge and we have started. Three years ago my limit was a mile in the pool and at a slower pace than I recently swam 10k in a lake – that’s the power of coaching.

Mark has been my fitness coach since January 2009 and at 56 I am stronger than I have ever been. He is now working with Salka and me to develop the specific muscles and core stability so that I can increase my swimming pace by 25% and sustain it for three hours.

Having four coaches costs money though my enhanced professional and personal results more than pay for it.

I ‘get’ coaching. Do you?

You have a default future that will occur on its own if nothing changes. What is your default future – the result you will achieve on your own without a coach? And on a scale of 0-10 how excited are you about that?

If you want expert support and challenge to explore and deliver your bigger possible future then get in touch. I have limited availability though for the right leader I will make time for a two hour coaching session in order to get started.

My coaching works. I’d bet my mortgage on it – in fact I do every day.