Top 10 Benefits of Having a Coach

In this post we take a look at the 10 key benefits of having a personal, private and professional coach.

1. Help Clarify Values and Important Goals
   Many people don’t have the slightest idea about what they want to do with their lives. Many times they select their values from a list of worthy sounding ideals. And their goals tend to be vague and/or seemingly unattainable. Sadly, this is a common problem for most people.Good professional coaches are trained to help a person understand what really matters in his/her life. They can help clarify values and then make sure they’re in harmony with a person’s core desires. It’s the first major step for getting a life on track and it’s the first major role of a good coach.
2. Provide Extreme Personal Care
   Coaching is a safe place for a person to be. It’s a place where injustices, fears, frustrations and anger can be vented. It’s a place where dreams, fantasies and hopes surface and are openly discussed. It’s a place where confidentiality is of the highest order. It’s a place where someone can be herself without fear of sounding weak, insecure or scared. The coaching relationship is also a place where truth is king. The coach has no vested interest in the relationship other than helping the person have every advantage possible to lead the kind of life she wants for herself and her family.
3. Work on the WHOLE Person
   A person needs balance in his/her life. It’s possible to be hugely successful in terms of a career and still be miserable most of the time. For example, people who work all of the time often will neglect their health, their spiritual life, and recreational activities. They will neglect their family, friends, and loved ones in lieu of a successful business career.By examining a person’s whole life, a coach can identify where that person is out of balance and then help him take manageable steps towards having a well-rounded life. Many corporate business executives are attracted to hiring a personal coach for these very reasons.
4. Uncover Natural Talents and Gifts
   A good coach can motivate a client to do something they didn’t know they were capable of doing. By having a natural curiosity about what makes people tick and utilizing special coaching tools, professional coaches are able to uncover talents, abilities and gifts that many people don’t even know they have. It can be a truly enlightening experience for a person to go through this discovery with their coach.
5. Craft Action Plans
   What good are values and goals without a good action plan? The best action plans are the ones where the client has complete “free will” to choose a path that is comfortable for him/her self. The coach simply finds out what the client wants to accomplish and then helps them to take action.Motivation is much more likely to occur when there is no pressure or “shoulds” in a relationship like this. But the coach is no fool. Forwarding the action or deepening the learning must always take place to make the coaching experience worthwhile. A coach just simply makes this whole process a little easier.
6. Provide Accountability
   A key ingredient for a successful coaching relationship is for the person to be accountable for the things that he says he will do. However, there are no judgements, disappointments or guilt trips laid on the client in the event of non-action, but there is accountability. The person must let the coach know what he did (or did not do) from each coaching session to the next.
7. Eliminate the Energy Drains
   What are you tolerating in your life that you wish was not there, but it’s not a big enough deal to make an issue out of it? Are you tolerating a cluttered desk? Are you tolerating that hubcap that needs replacing? Are you allowing people to invade your space and time and infringe on your personal boundaries? Are you tolerating something from a significant other that is silently having an adverse affect on the relationship?When coaches make this request, most people can come up with a list of a hundred or more tolerations that have been eating away at them over a period of time. Coaches are all too familiar with how they sap the energy right out of a person’s life, energy that could be used to build a business or fulfill a life. Coaches use special tools early in the relationship to systematically eliminate things their clients tolerate.
8. Prevent Relapse
   When a person cannot get the support that is needed to build their business, it’s very easy to let things slide and not get them done. It’s also possible to allow the many distractions that happen every day bring us down. It’s sad that this is the way it is sometimes, but it’s true.A coach’s role is to be there for their clients in a supportive environment. That’s what they get paid for. Most professional coaches even allow email and telephone support in between coaching sessions that further deepen the relationship. Many clients report that the relationship between their coaches and themselves becomes so meaningful that they look to their coaching calls as one of the main highlights of their week.
9. Have a Silent Business Partner
   How would you like to have a business partner that makes this promise to you: “As your coach, I have a special relationship where I help you get very clear on your goals and then together, we craft an action plan that systematically gets you into manageable action steps. As you take these action steps you bring more balance into your life so that every aspect of your life is enhanced. Each week I will hold you accountable for those action steps, but without any judgement whatsoever, if you don’t do the things you say you will do. I am your silent business partner who is dedicated to your success, but where you get to keep all of the profits.”
10. Coaches Help Their Clients Become Coaches
    Many clients gain so much benefit from their coaching sessions that they naturally want to help others by becoming coaches themselves. In the process of being coached by a professional coach, clients learn some of the basics on how to coach others. The tools and skills that most coaches use are mostly skills that we already know from our life experiences and training. A good coach teaches how to use those skills and enhance them to a powerful and even professional level.

I welcome your comments.

Glenn Andrew
www.glennandrew.com