COACHING IS:
- A future-focused method of fostering personal growth that leverages the clients own experiences, wisdom, and energy to create significant and desired life changes.
- A partnership that helps the client understand their personal and professional goals and meet them using their own insight, power, and strength.
- A co-creative process in which the coach meets the client wherever they are in their thinking, emotions, and experience to empower choice and change.
- A shared learning experience in which the coach comes to deeply appreciate the experiences of the client in order to support them in becoming who they want to be.
- A relationship in which the client is supported by the coach in discovering their own unique path forward rather than the coach identifying the path, advising the client on how to progress, or suggesting specific solutions to the challenges facing the client.
COACHING IS NOT:
- Therapy focuses on diagnosing and treating a client who is troubled by psychological or mental pain and/or symptoms that are interfering with their life. Therapy is primarily focused on past experiences rather than on the future, which is the case with coaching.
- Counseling also tends to be past rather than future-oriented, and typically involves the counselor providing guidance and advice to support the client in addressing specific problems and dissatisfaction in their life.
- Mentoring is when someone who is more senior and experienced, typically in a professional setting, provides advice and guidance to support the mentee in advancing professionally. Mentors may also act as advocates for their junior mentees to help them develop important career connections.
- Consulting is a future-oriented process in which someone with experience, training, and expertise provides information, resources, and, when requested, advice to an individual seeking support in a certain personal or professional area.
