How can you help the people around you to achieve their goals and reach their potential? CATRIONA HOREY is a Coach in the UK, where she helps leaders to set goals and achieve them. In this episode, she explains what coaching is, how it works, and how you can use coaching skills to support others. Listen here, or read the highlights below.
What Is Coaching?
Catriona says, ‘Coaching is about helping people to look at where they are in life, where they want to be and what are the steps to get there. It is a future-focused way of supporting people.’
Before she became a coach herself, Catriona worked with a coach during a time in her life when she was experiencing a lot of change. She says, ‘It really helped to build my confidence… I used coaching to step back and think about my priorities and where I wanted to be placing my energy.’
How Does Coaching Work?
‘The majority of the time people come to me wanting to look at their careers,’ Catriona says. ‘But when you dig a bit deeper there might be other things at play - they might want to get married, move abroad, completely change careers… not just get a promotion.
‘People often know that there is something more, or different, that they want in their lives. And together we think about their values - what is really important to them - and how they can tap into that innate, wise self that we all have. From there we set goals. These can be very precise, through to visions about how they want to be.
‘We meet every two weeks, and I ask people to bring a topic that they want to focus on that will help them move towards their goals. This helps people to tap into their own knowledge and confidence, and I am there to help facilitate the conversation, ask questions and reflect back what I am hearing. But really it is about trusting that the person I’m coaching is naturally creative, resourceful and whole.’
How Can We Use Coaching Skills In Our Own Lives And Work?
Catriona says, ‘When I think about the really important parts of coaching, it’s about the quality of our listening, and the quality of our questions. Coaching is about being of service to someone and being present for them - listening well and asking questions to promote insight and help them move their own thinking forward.
‘Listening from a coaching perspective is about slowing down and really hearing what people are saying... asking them what is important to them and listening for the nuance of what is not being said. It is turning our attention to the other person - taking it away from ourselves and putting it on them. It is about being really thoughtful as we interact with others.’
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