The following is the fourth installment in a weekly series of reflections from one of our learners in the Coaching Foundation Program. Each week, Silvester will recap his personal experience to give insight into what it’s like to become a life coach. If you’re ready to start your journey in coaching, please get in touch. We’re here to help.
With each passing day, there’s a visible shift within me. One of the most obvious shifts is that even though I am nervous, I am not letting the nervousness control me. A lot of it is thanks to the Life Coaching Foundation course where, besides coaching, I am learning a lot about myself and my relationship with others. That also brings me to this week’s topic where we learned self-exploration and a few psychometric tools.
Psychometrics and Labelling
As part of this week’s exercise, we undertook the Enneagram & 16 Personalities test. This helped us understand ourselves better, and interestingly, we labelled ourselves with the personality trait or type we got. But this isn’t right. We, as human beings, are constantly evolving and growing. By labelling ourselves, we can hinder this growth. In the coaching context, the same theory applies. If a client has undertaken these psychometric tests, it’s important for us as coaches not to label them or let them label themselves. The results of these tests are supposed to be used as tools to explore your client further. It can be done by questioning their thoughts about it, learning how they feel, etc.
Believe You
Later, we discussed the ICF competencies. While discussing the ICF competencies, I realized how important it is to believe in my skills. To some extent, this can be achieved if you truly believe in serving your client. Think about it, if you are someone who doesn’t believe in yourself, how can you trust someone else? And as coaches, you have to believe that your client knows the answer. So if there’s no trust, this can never be achieved. This also led to an interesting conversation about intuition, and how pure unbiased intuitions can serve the clients.
Failure is not the end
Lastly, we had a small journaling exercise, which was the highlight of the day for me. It really made me think about what I wanted in life, what will happen if I achieve it, what will happen if I don’t achieve it and what my fears were. We then had to reflect on this with another member of the cohort. It was during this reflection that I realised—even if I don’t achieve my goal, even if I fail, the knowledge I gained, the efforts I put in and the experience I went through will stay with me.
Failing doesn’t mean my life has ended
Tracy left us with an interesting question “Does the journey of being a coach ever end?” The answer, at least for me, is no. This is a never-ending journey. With every client, you will evolve. With every interaction with your clients, your peers, or your teachers/seniors you will grow. So, growing and evolving is a major part of being a coach.
To sum it all up, I am thoroughly enjoying this journey. A lot of the credit goes to Tracy and Smita, my mentors. Together they have created a space that makes us feel comfortable to share our thoughts, doubts, and experiences without being worried about any form of judgement. And it’s thanks to them that the assignments and the learning don’t feel like some chores I have to do, but rather something I want to do. I am so glad to have undertaken this journey and I am loving the change that is happening within me.
