If You Can't Answer This Question You're Crawling Into A Very Long Hole What Is Coaching?
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Have you been asked this question before and found yourself going into a very long winding, twisting explanation of what it is that you do?
To someone who's face looks as perplexed as yours' the last time you tried to understand quantum physics...
Why is a coaching definition important?
If you're a coach, you want to be able to explain to clients what they're getting into, how it works out for them and what they need to get started.
Similarly, if you're a client, and you're spending a lot of money on getting coached, you want to know that you're getting what you signed up for.
Ok, so what is coaching?
There are many coaching definitions out there, so before you get lost, my suggestion is that you read a few and then sit down to write your own.
Once you have it on paper, you can start refining your concept, finding new angles to your definition based on your growing understanding and practice in coaching. Remain flexible, you may change your ideas over time.
Lets look at coaching from a different perspective, since coaching is frequently confused with other fields of practice such as therapy or mentoring.
Although coaching draws from many fields - psychology, business, consulting, management theory among many others, it's distinctly different.
Coaching is not therapy: therapy focuses mainly on psychological problems or issues that a person might have. While coaching may use some psychology principles within its process, coaches are not certified to treat known psychological problems nor offer therapeutic solutions (unless of course you're a licensed therapist and you're adding coaching to your therapy).
Coaching is not consulting in the strict sense: consultants are usually experts in a given field, being hired to solve a specific problem or issue. Coaching generally has a more broad approach, and frequently a coach doesn't need to be an expert in the client's area of expertise; although for certain fields, such as business, you may want to be well versed in the area that you're offering your services on.
Coaching is not mentoring: a mentor, like a consultant, has a specific set of experiences that he or she will bestow on the person being mentored, somewhat like a teacher-student relationship. It's a formal relationship with someone who is an expert in his or her field.
What is a coaching model?
A model is a strategy that a coach will follow to achieve a goal. There are many coaching models in use today, each approach uses different tools and tactics to produce results.
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