HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR COACH ?

No matter if you decide to embark on a long coaching journey or just a one hour session, working with a coach implies time, money and emotional investment hence it is important to choose the right professional to guide you but how do you do that ?

Here are my 3 recommendations to help you choose your coach.

# 1: THE HUMAN BEING

The most important criteria when choosing a coach (same goes for choosing a teacher, a doctor or a psychotherapist for that matter...) is not necessarily their diploma(s), nor the impressive number of people they coached so far, it is simply the coach him/herslelf.

What I mean by that is someone you can trust, someone you feel comfortable opening up to, someone you feel motivated working with. Coaching is a highly human field of activity and the extend of the results you will achieve are directly correlated to the quality of the relashionship between the coachee and the coach.

Why is it so important to choose the right person ? Well, if you do not trust or like talking to that professional, chances are you will not be comitted fully nor open up enough for the coach to appropriately support your goal. Ultimately, this will lead to counter-productive effects such as getting incorrect or incomplete support, getting frustrated and eventually losing the motivation to pursue your goal altogether without speaking of time and money loss. So spare yourself the trouble by really investing time reading about the professional and doing a bit of due dilligence. Most of coaches do offer a free "chemistry session" which is sepcifically meant to help you test the water and choose the right fit for you. Feel free to take full advantage of it :-)

How can you go about choosing the right person besides just intuition ? Well, you can start by asking yourself questions such as do you prefer working with a man or a woman or maybe that does not matter at all. Is the age of your coach important to you? Their professional background, do you prefer someone with the same type of background (schools, industries they worked in, countries they lived in...) or on the contrary do you feel someone with a totally different background from yours might bring you a "fresh" eye.

Also the personality of the coach, for example some coaches are more the energizing/booster type, others will be very results/process driven others will focus more on empathy or spiritual approach. There are actually no golden rules when it comes to these questions except your own feeling as well as reading carefuly the coaching profile and their offer.

It is your journey and a time you invest on yourself so being fully honest with yourself and trusting your instincts will put you on the right track!

And if really no criteria comes to your mind keep reading as I will give you additional pointers.

#2: THE COACHING APPROACH

There are many different ways coaches work with their coachee. They use different techniques, have a specialization or on the contrary are generalists. Some coaches incorporate personality tests in their work for example others don't. Some coaches have created their own tools, others would combine coaching and visualization techniques or sophrology or even coaches who mix it with astrology. Again, do know what you feel the most comfortable with or attracted to intuitively. There are many ways you can learn to play the piano or learn maths...Well, coaching is in a way the same. It is hard to know without trying of course but there are some hints that may guide you already on the website of the coach.

#3 : Last but not least: YOUR NEEDS

How much time are you willing to dedicate to your coaching ? Do you prefer online or face to face sessions ? How long are the sessions offered by your coach ? What budget are you considering to invest as the price of coach can vary a lot from one coach to the other. Is the coaching duration flexible ? How about payment plan ? What exactly do you need help on as sometimes coaching is simply not the most adapted solution.

The clearer you will be on exactly what you need help on the more you will be able to source the best coach or and the best tools to help you.