Maybe you shouldn’t be a Coach
Coaching is the hottest profession right now. Here’s why;
- You need ZERO experience or education for it.
- You just need to persuade people you got your shit together and that you can help them achieve the same.
- You don’t actually have to achieve ANYTHING significant. All you need to do is tell other people what to do, and take credit for their success.
Right?
…
When you’re in it for the wrong reasons
I’ve always wanted to be a psychotherapist since a very young age. I was desperate to help people, help the world, solve every problem under the sun. As I grew up, life pushed me down another path, and in my 30s I decided to study Coaching instead. A very interesting thing happened though, which kind of shook me awake; I learnt that coaching is not about “helping”, “fixing” or “advising”. It’s about holding space for people to discover things for themselves, solve their own problems, come to their own conclusions.
It’s (not) about you
A part of me (my big fat ego) was devastated. Not offering solutions, not jumping in to tell people what to do or what you would have done or what you did when something similar happened to you, is hard! Knowing how to shut up and just hold space is so much harder.
During my accreditation journey I was required to receive Supervision by a more experienced coach with specific coaching supervision training. That’s similar to how psychotherapists are required to see a psychotherapist themselves on a regular basis. The reason that’s necessary in the helping professions, is that we are all human (surprise!) and we have baggage, biases and triggers. If these are left unchecked, they can hijack the therapeutic process and mess up the client and the therapist/coach. Listening to other people’s problems all day can be very very heavy, especially for therapists who usually deal with much more serious cases than coaches.
But here’s the funny part…
During my Supervision sessions, I came to realize that the real reason I was gravitating towards Psychology, Coaching and other healing modalities, is because I myself was traumatized. My need for healing pushed me towards the knowledge that would help me help myself. I didn’t want to help others. I primarily wanted to help myself.
Soon after this realization, I actually reached a huge milestone in my healing. The childhood wounds that had plagued me all my life were resolved. They had no more power over me. And that day, was the day I lost my interest in being a coach. Just like that, it was over. I didn’t want to help anyone, save anyone, rescue anyone, heal anyone.
When I told my Supervisor that I feared I was in the profession for the wrong reasons, he said, “I wish more of my clients would also realize this and stop coaching for a living”.
It turns out I am not the only person to ever fall for this trap. In fact, if we take this a step further and look at people in all walks of life, we will see that most people that are externally focused (want to help/save other people, change the world etc.) actually really need to heal a deep wound within themselves. We project our internal issues out into the world.
So now what?
So does this mean that the best coaches and therapists are the ones who are truly selfless, and have all their issues solved? Not really. Regardless of our intentions and level of awareness, we can all help each other at different stages of our life journey. Sometimes the student becomes the teacher. Sometimes, the client will bring light and awareness in the mind of the coach. Therapeutic relationships should be a mutually beneficial energy exchange.
- As a coach, don’t look for people to save. And don’t expect perfection from yourself. No one is perfect.
- As a client, don’t look to the coach to give you all the answers. And don’t expect the coach to have everything figured out. Nobody has everything figured out.
I see the coaching interaction as a contract between two people who are both looking for more awareness, more connection, better solutions, more life satisfaction. A relationship in which everybody wins.
