Coaching is all about helping someone out, either one person or a whole group, to get better at something. It could be teaching them new skills, advising them to improve their work, or guiding them through a challenging situation. The person giving the guidance is the coach, and the one learning is the coachee.
What Exactly Is Coaching
When I think “Coach,” I think of my high school tennis coach, Coach Clark, not big in stature but large in personality, teaching, and character. We ran drill after drill, serving until our shoulders hurt, and she course-corrected our form and style, then we played—a lot. We worked hard, and we played hard.
Coach Clark loved Birmingham, AL tournaments so we could stop at one of our favorite restaurants—Johnny Ray’s bar-b-que or Golden Corral. The team loved the “make your own” ice cream sundae at Golden Corral, and calories didn’t count because we were young and we’d just played hours of tennis.
What I remember most about Coach Clark is that we all felt valued. We knew she had high expectations, and we had to work hard, but we also knew that one bad day on the court did not define us. No, we were defined by our ability to come back when losing a set or return to the court for extra practice after bombing a match. We were defined by our sportsmanship and power to call the hard shots, even if it was not in our favor. Our ability to be kind to our teammates, opponents, and ourselves defined us. NEVER did Coach Clark allow us to find our identity in our failures or successes; instead, she focused on character development, learning experiences, and resilience.
That focus, character development, learning experiences, and resilience define modern-day coaching. In the early 1900s, coaching began to branch out with vocational coaching. In the mid-20th century, psychology saw the emergence of life coaching, and most recently, coaching focuses on specific niches like divorce, health, and career. No matter the material, all coaching provides a temporary illumination of different paths, options, and learning opportunities. Coaching should be temporary. It should be that skills are learned and practiced and then able to be implemented solo by the athlete or learner. While a kicking coach can tweak form, give strengthening workouts, and help set goals, it is up to the player to execute the game-winning field goal at the end of the day.
In essence, coaches provide clients with guidance, encouragement, and constructive feedback. They ask questions to help learners identify their strengths and weaknesses, set goals, create action plans, and navigate challenges. The coach is client-centered, focusing on unique needs or situations. The coach is a thinking partner who illuminates all the paths for a client or athlete to achieve a desired outcome. Yet, at the end of the day, the client is empowered to reach their full potential, living their most fulfilling lives, simply with a toolset provided by the coach.
Receive The Guidance You Need
Like Coach Clark, coaches help clients recognize that they are not defined by their successes and failures or life circumstances but rather by their character, choices, and resilience. If your coach gives you the tools to transform your thinking into one of learning and continually growing instead of a fixed mindset of being defined by your past, then they have successfully done their job. You can now focus forward with hope and a future.
Forge & Flourish provides unique coaching programs to help you navigate through some of life’s toughest storms. From divorce to the loss of a loved one or career, you can receive a free consultation to determine if our programs are right for you.
