How Zen-ish Coaching Works

What is coaching? What actually happens across a series of coaching sessions? The answers to these questions vary from one coach to another, so these are excellent questions.

Because the coaching industry is unregulated, anyone can call themselves a coach, with no training at all. Worse, any person or organization can "certify" coaches based on "training" composed of personal opinions, with no backing from research, no input from licensed professional counselors, no supervised experience, no qualifying exam, and without even a coherent philosophy. There is a whole cadre of coaches so nonsensical that they will "help" you by telling you to "raise your vibration and the universe will manifest anything you desire". Most coaches only provide one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter advice for achieving vocational and financial goals, not working on intimate personal challenges. They do little more than help you identify tasks, and make you feel bad when you don't complete one of them on some arbitrary schedule.

There are good coaches too, but when they are good, it's because of what they bring to it from outside of whatever coaching certifications they have. I have three coaching certifications, and have previewed several other coaching certification programs. It's generally pretty meh.

You need (and deserve) more than well-intentioned common advice, pep talks, and annoying, external accountability or you wouldn't be here in the first place. As you can see here, I have professional training and work experience in counseling psychology, as well as an exceptionally broad range of other trainings and life experiences. This combination enables me to understand and assist you in a deeply personalized and effective way. Please see my book, Eat The Strawberries for a full understanding of the values, ideas, feelings, and philosophy that attend my work.

Most of us find it useful to proceed in conversation with someone who can help us see our own blind spots, and bring in perspectives and tools that enlarge our own. If we work together, it will be my objective to do that for you. Here is the step-by-step outline:

1. We will clearly define what you want to be true in the near future that is not true today. Examples: "I want to be able to talk about <x> with my child, spouse, parent, partner, employer," or "I need to make powerful, persuasive presentations at work with more confidence," or "I don't want to be so anxious so much of the time," or "I need help grieving this loss," or …
2. We will identify the top three things that have to be different to significantly improve the chances of achieving what you defined in Step 1. Examples: gain clarity, confidence, and practice on what you want to communicate in a challenging conversation, identify key talking points and practice presenting them, meditate daily and learn one or more quick anxiety-stopping techniques, reduce the fear of being overwhelmed so you can fully feel and process your grief.
3. We will come up with specific actions you can and will actually take in the next two to three months to make those things happen. You only control yourself, and no one else, so we will only identify things you can do, not things you need other people to do. For example, you cannot take the action, "Get Tom to stop doing <x>," but you can take the action, "Speak with Tom about the impact of him doing <x>, and try to get his agreement to do <y> instead." We will identify specific things you can say and do to make your desired outcome likely.
4. We will put together all of the actions you identified in Step 3, assess if you can accomplish them all in the next two or three months. If not, further decompose things until each objective is realistically achievable and contributes to the larger goal. If it doesn't all fit into the next two or three months, we will identify what will so you can get that part done.
5. You will prepare and practice as needed.
6. You will try out new approaches in real life.
7. You will evaluate how that is going, adjust your plan as needed, and continue with as much independence or assistance as you want as you move along.

If this sounds good to you, book a free introductory session.