A quick search on the interweb reveals as many definitions of life coaching as there are life coaches; a virtual forest of variations on what should be a single theme. Or should it?
For some clients a life coach is a guidepost, for others the guide, and for still more a coach is the map itself. Can all of these definitions be correct? Are any or all of them wrong? Is there one clear definition ‘hook’ upon which we can hang our professional coaching identities?
Yes, no and, um, no. Sorry about the last one, but the reality is that each coach is defined first by his or her abilities, training and experiences, second by their areas of expertise or interest, and third, and perhaps most importantly, by their clients.
As coaches we are what our clients need us to be. Does that make sense? We will confess that we both struggled with this in the beginning, both rigidly adhering to the professional coaching framework that we had been taught. But the more we worked with clients, and in fact the more we talked through our experiences with the professional coaches who trained us, the more we realised that our training was just the beginning.
Thankfully we are both lifelong learners. We think most coaches are. In the course of our travels, studies and work we have met many coaches, and we suspect that we all share certain characteristics. ‘We’ are by nature curious, about everything; the cultures we visit, the world we live in, the things we build and use, and, most of all, our fellow human beings. What makes them tick, what drives them, what makes them happy, proud, live full lives…and how can we help them achieve that?
Which brings us back to the framework. There is no question that we needed professional coaching training, a starting point, something that moved us on from our existing combination of instinct and compassion. We both recognised this. But what we couldn’t know, and was only revealed as we applied our training in practise, is that we were astronauts on the launch platform.
Let us explain. Astronauts train for years, decades, for the opportunity to launch in to space. They have the knowledge, the skills, the equipment, and, ‘shazam’, they are astronauts. Great, but the fact is that until they step out of the door and have nothing under their heavily padded feet but endless space and a little blue and green ball in the distance to remind them where they come from, they are not really astronauts.
That’s when they really start learning. That’s when theory is put in to practice. That’s when things go wrong!
Okay, so comparing life coaches to astronauts is a bit of a stretch! But there are similarities. We both face the great unknown and we both, quite literally in some cases, have other people’s lives in our hands (and in our heads, and that brings its own challenges – future blog!). And so we continue learning. We always use that framework, but as time goes on it becomes more flexible. We bend it, twist it, disassemble it and rebuild it. It’s our Lego set, we can do whatever we want with it.
As coaches we all need a framework, but even if we all started with the same training, at the same time, and used the same framework to start with, within weeks or months they would all look completely different. Like the primary school art show we attended the other night. An entire class started with the objective of creating a sculpture of the leaning tower of Pisa. From a distance they looked the same, but up close the differences were striking and clearly illustrated their individuality.
How fantastic that as coaches we can share one profession, but bring to it our own identities, experiences and knowledge, continue to learn and grow, and give our clients adaptive and personal support. We love this job!
Mark & Annie Harvey
Magpie Coaching
Magpie Coaching 