INVESTING IN COACHING: WHY IT'S WORTH IT
Making the decision to invest in a Coaching Partnership is a big one. It takes a commitment of time, energy, finances, and a genuine willingness to hear a different perspective and SEE things in a new and different way.
Over the course of my own coaching journey I have hired and worked with many coaches and mentors, oftentimes at an investment level that feels edgy and out of reach, so I understand how profound that decision can be. I have chosen those partnerships for myself because I believe deeply in the power of this work and have experienced first hand how it has helped me along my own adventure of growth, learning, and discovery.
So if you're asking yourself, "Why coaching? Why this investment? Is this worth it? What exactly am I getting?" - here's what I can offer:
WHY COACHING:
1. When the going gets tough...there is no getting going.
The truth of the matter is that change is TOUGH. Committing to thinking and doing something differently is terrexcitifying . Quite frankly, it would be easier to walk away from the choice to challenge and change yourself and stick with the status quo.
And that's what most of us do. We THINK about what we want. Then we fear and we doubt, and stories and familiar ways of being, behaving, and thinking creep in; we walk away to stick with our old, comfortable habits.
If you choose to work with a coach it's because you don't want to walk away. You want to stay near the flame, the edge. you choose to invest because you and your vision are worth that investment.
Remember: BIG dreams=BIG flames. As your coach, I can share an objective, well trained perspective and speak a new kind of truth that REALLY pushes your buttons and asks you to commit to DOING things that challenge you and make you feel awkward, off-kilter, and new.
If those conversations and assignments were free, it's likely that you would ignore those parts that feel edgy and new. It's EASIER to walk away in that moment, to say, "this is too scary and too uncomfortable and I'm out!" (how many free courses have you ever completed? Balls to the walls completed. Think about it.)
And that's why you choose to invest in this work, because the moment you do you make a decision to CREATE the big vision (hard) rather than just keep talking about it (easy).
2. Commitment
Investing in a coaching is like buying a first-class plane ticket (see first half of video below!) and when you click buy, it creates that feeling of knowing that nothing will keep you from catching that flight. Money commits you - your time and your energy - to DOING something rather than talking about it. Taking that step says, "Okay. I am in. I will do this. I am ready."
Like it or not, money adds a powerful layer of ACTION instead of just endlessly ruminating on an idea.
** watch until about 3:30 to understand more about plane-ticket-commitment!
3. Partnership
As your coach, I become your mental WingWoman and my support is Unlimited. I commit to learning about you and what you've been up to; I speak from experience when I tell you that there is something deeply reassuring and motivating in having that background with someone who you can trust so deeply.
A metaphor I love to turn to for coaching is of climbing Mt. Everest. It's a journey you can take on your own OR with an expedition leader guiding, supporting, and focusing on YOU and your climb. I am your Expedition Leader.
4. A New Perspective
The problem with our stories - the thoughts, the overwhelm, the fear, the emotional fog - is that when you're in them you can have a hard time finding your way out. And oftentimes those people who are most close to us - our spouses, partners, friends and family - dive in to our stories right alongside us. Or if they DO try to tell us a different way of looking at things, we'll react defensively or without really hearing what they're trying to share.
As your coach, I will serve you with the truth as I see it, no matter how uncomfortable or scary, and I won't try to please you with what I think you want to hear.
There is something so powerful about being able to lay all of your whirlwind thinking on the table and to know that without judgment I am going to say to you, "There is more to this than what you're seeing. Let's look at it all from a different angle."
I offer gentle but powerful guidance out of that constricting space into something more light, more possible, more creative, all without judgment, expectation, or agenda.
5. Space
Ahh...sometimes it's just so nice to take a big idea - something that feels huge and overwhelming and like it's spinning around in you brain like a tornado - and dump it into a big, wide, expansive, clean, judgment-free space that exists in a coaching conversation.
My job as a coach is to calm you down and provide a space where you can better see your own wisdom and witness your own noise.
“It’s like taking a box of jumbled up Legos and pouring them onto a huge, white tray. You can spread it out, sort it, create space and air around each piece and find that special little brick upon which you want to start building your next masterpiece.”
6. Selfishness
Your work with me is all about YOU. Not me. YOU. In your life, where so much of your time is - willingly - about serving and supporting and loving and caring for others - investing in time for yourself is like a priceless, rare gem.
Coaching, with a powerful coach, gives you more of YOU. A great coach comes into the space of conversations without thinking of him or herself. Rather, a coach is only focused on the client.
When I am your coach, time with me time with YOURSELF. It is a gift, and you have earned it.
7. An Edge
Imagine you're running around a fenced in area. You think that you're limited by the boundary of the fence AND you also know that there are openings in the fence that will give you access to bigger, wider fields.
You can find those openings on your own -- they're elusive, almost invisible, but with commitment and time you can feel your way along the edge, open up those doors, and decide to walk through them.
The problem is that to cross the fence is scary. There is a zing there. An unknown answer to the questions "Will I make it across the fence?? What lies beyond it??"
As your coach, though, I attend to that fence. I stand right at it, SHOWING you the gaps, saying, "here --- come this way, hold my hand and let's walk through so you can see what's on the other side. You're okay. You're bigger and stronger than that fear. Let's play."