Why does coaching work?

I want to share how and why I think that coaching works. 

I’ve been a coach working with clients for several years now and I think that there are many reasons why coaching can work but I’m going to share two of the big reasons here today.

This is not some sort of secret mystical process in my mind. Although like anybody I can be a fan of fun mystical stuff. I recently had my first tarot card reading. Have you ever done that?

First, we have to ask what does it mean “to work”? 

To me this means that the client … that’s who’s paying for the coaching gets the result that they are looking for. This is true for any type of coaching. Fitness coaching, endurance coaching, running coaching, business coaching, mindset coaching all of it. 

Hidden in that statement is the first part of why I believe that coaching works.

A coach helps you get very clear on what you are working towards.

Clarity on what is your goal?

Now, with endurance training most people come to the coach with that goal in mind. For example, I want to run a marathon. I want to do an Ironman Triathlon. This is the coaching I’ve been doing for years. I now do mindset coaching which is also called life coaching. The point is the same, if you come to a coach with an unclear goal the first step really will be to get clear on what it means to you. 

It sounds simple but it’s super important. I’ll give you an example from a conversation I had with a prospective client a few days ago. This person reached out to me for advice because they “want to get in shape” and they want some help finding exercise that they enjoy and according to them they hate all exercise and have basically hated it forever.

I offered to talk to them about this and they asked … how…how would this help and what would we talk about and I was super honest that our first conversation will be about what does “get in shape mean to you.” 

This is a huge thing. If you don’t know what you are working toward it’s very hard to figure out what the first step or any of the steps are. So this is a big way that coaching works.

Reflection or a mirror of what you are doing and thinking.

This is a very cool and powerful thing. 

Now, I want you to think back over your life and all the times that you allowed yourself to lie to yourself. It’s a weird thing we humans do. If you don’t do this … well I think everybody does this.

I only got up a little late – that’s basically on time. But it’s not … that’s a lie. 

• I only ate a few sweets that’s basically my plan. — but it’s not that’s a lie. 
• I only made one sales call instead of 10 that’s okay.
• I only cut my run short a little bit – I’m okay. But it’s not … you get the idea

And here’s the thing — coaches will mirror that back to you with a variety of techniques. For endurance coaching that’s often a training log.

For a trainer this is being there in person and counting the reps. True story when I was training for triathlon I used to cut all my swim sets short. I still do this if there is no coach. The workout would say 10 by 50 on a minute and i would swim like 3 and then say  okay that’s enough what’s next. But if I go to masters swimming then I just do the whole thing. 

For life coaching and mindset coaching there are a bunch of tools we use for this. It’s amazingly powerful. If you are curious about how this works I encourage you to reach out to me because … this is what I do.

I featured this on the podcast in August 2021. You can find that here.