Coaching is a Creative Process

This blog goes out to all the newer coaches. 

In the beginning, new coaches are so hungry to prove their value; to know that they are really helping people. And you can do that most easily when you help your clients solve their problems. 

You help your client fix their problem, now you feel worthy of being paid. 

But problem-focused coaching is exhausting for both you and your client. 

Think about that thing you know you want to fix in your life. It’s been that way for quite a while now, hasn’t it? You haven’t changed, the situation hasn’t changed.

Go ahead and think about the problem…and now shift your focus to the energy in your body. Is it starting to decrease? Do you fill a pit in your stomach? Are you leaning away?

Most of us don’t generate great motivational energy when we focus on our problems. 

Now instead, take a second and think about what you’d love to create in this area of your life. What do you ultimately want to experience? What are the feelings you want to have more often?

And now what is happening with your energy? Are you leaning forward? A tinge of excitement?

It can be challenging to lean into creating at first because we don’t often think deeply about what we want…because we’re so focused on what we don’t want – the problem.

Coaching can be so much more than helping people solve their problems. 

Helping your clients create a vision for their lives, their relationships, or their careers that is so powerful that the things they thought were problems begin to dissolve when they start living from that vision. That is coaching from a place of creation.

Because when you create a strong enough vision it’s not a place to get to, it’s a place to come from. You can start creating that future right now by asking, “who do I need to be in order to live that vision for my life?” 

And then start living from that place. 

All too often our clients are bringing the stories from their past into their current day and into their future. They’re creating their future from their past. 

As coaches, we help our clients create a whole new future vision, one strong enough that will require an elevated version of themselves and a new narrative about who they are and what they’re capable of doing. 

It’s a totally creative process. And when we work from this place the energy is elevated and forward moving. 

Remember, coaching doesn’t have to be remedial. 

It’s not about solving our client’s problems and bringing them back to a status quo level. It’s about opening the door to possibility and helping them see what they could not see before. And then helping them get there.