What To Expect From Coaching

I’m gonna get super serious here, and talk about what to expect from coaching with me.

As a member of the International Coach Federation, I take their principles very seriously. First and foremost: confidentiality. I will maintain the confidentiality of everything that happens in our sessions. Also: coaching as an equal partnership. Coaching is a partnership between you and me to get you from where you are now to where you want to be.

I am here to listen—without judgment; with curiosity. To ask questions. To share reflections, observations, ideas. More often than not, I’ll invite you to consider a homework exercise or assignment. You’ll get the most out of coaching if you come fully prepared and present, take charge of the topic and the work, and truly understand that the space is yours. I’ll trust that you have faith that I welcome your feedback and am comfortable with all your emotions, including frustrations with me.

We start with an intake form that you complete, that helps me understand where you are right now, and forces at play in your life. It also offers you a chance to start getting clear about why you’re seeking coaching right now, what your goals are, and what changes you’d like to see as a result of our work together.

It’s important that you understand that I have no agenda except your agenda; I’m here to support you in meeting your needs. That means I do not come with a prepared curriculum or predetermined package of assessments. Any homework or assessment that I invite you to consider will emerge through our work together. That said, let’s be clear that I have over the course of time collected a wealth of tools, exercises, and resources—not to mention expertise—that I will of course share happily with you as appropriate.

In our first session, we’ll go more deeply into your goals and aspirations, so that we’ve established a clear image in both of our minds of your hoped-for future, which I will use as my guidepost during our sessions.

Following sessions will have an arc: we’ll start with a review of what’s happened since we last spoke, and what you’d like to acknowledge yourself for. I also keep a running list of assignments and will ask about each of them. This will be our time to celebrate what you’ve accomplished, and to troubleshoot and identify next steps on assignments you didn’t complete. Next, I’ll ask what topic you’d like to focus on for this session, and what you’d like to achieve with regard to that topic by the end of the session. We’ll launch into the session, and as we wrap up, I’ll ask you what you take away from this session, and any reflections on assignments and next steps.

The whole engagement also has an arc: the first couple sessions set the tone and offer momentum; it’s in the middle of the engagement that a lot of the heavy lifting happens, especially as your awareness sets in and takes effect in new behaviors, practices, and mindsets; and toward the end of our time together, we review your goals and use that review to guide the focus of the final sessions. In our last session, we’ll spend some time on more practical aspects of how you’ll maintain your momentum after the completion of our engagement.

I also appreciate a (complimentary) 20-30-minute closure, to reflect on our time together, offer you a chance to appreciate where you’ve come, and offer me a chance to share my appreciations of our time together.