What Coaching means to me

Before training to be a coach, I’d had coaching to help me get the job I wanted, the way I wanted it. It worked so well, I didn’t think about it again until I was ready for the next move.

Coaching can be brilliant at a time of transition. Essentially it's about giving you raised awareness and clarity about your journey. For me, I felt I had been walking down a dark corridor with no way out. Coaching not only turned on the lights, so I could see that there were doors ahead of me, but somehow ensured the doors started to swing open, revealing options I had never properly explored before. Coaching has, for me, been a fairly magical process, much more than the sum of its parts. Somehow, I have a much better understanding now of how I think and feel, and which actions will take me forward.

I am lucky enough to have regular coaching now, which has supported me through some major life changes, including leaving my job and setting up my own business. My coach is always completely focussed on listening to me, which helps me get perspective on where I am and where I want to go next. However confused my thoughts seem at the beginning of a session, by the end I have clarity and increased confidence about what I am doing. This has prepared me for some incredibly difficult situations and conversations, helping me to work out what I want to achieve and how best to do it. And each time, the outcome has been positive for me.

Initially I thought this was luck, because surely it’s not possible that by thinking something through well enough you can make it go your way?! That would suggest that I can influence outcomes, that I have a whole lot more power than I’d realised about what happens to me…

And once I’d accepted that, I realised the corridor goes on round the corner, with a new row of doors swinging open.

Charlotte Semlyen, August 2014