Gain Results With Practical Experience In Coaching - Top Tips For Trainee Coaches

“Practice is everything. This is often misquoted as Practice makes perfect.” -Periander quotes (Tyrant of Corinth and ruler (c. 628-588), d.588bc)

I had an interesting challenge to myself as a coach when I started out on this article. I had on one side a belief that the more coaching you can do = more experience = more competence & capability as a coach. On the other side, I had thoughts on HOW this was wrapped up.

Practice often doesn’t make perfect (as perfection is an unrealistic goal to start off with!)

So for me, the focus a professional coach in training should give is how they can gain practical experience. And that comes with using realistic situations for your coaching.

On taking action - you + client = coaching dialogue.

What makes this a powerful tool for you, especially when you are setting out as a trainee coach?

I’m reminded of the story of Edison when being asked about the light bulb. “I haven’t failed; I’ve found 10,000 ways that don’t work”

Teaching about learning:

Coaching practicals are about teaching yourself about learning. About finding out what works for you in the way that you coach, and in what works for the clients you are working with.
So, what works will be different for you & your client in different situations as:
Your client changes
Your clients situation changes
You work with different clients

What works?

As you get more experience of coaching, you start to feel freer & to be able to mix your unique mix of skills you already have, with your coach training knowledge, with your knowledge of the client you are working with.

The more coaching you do, the more this becomes true.

I think back to when I started coaching and I had to have what seemed like ALL my notes from the coach training course around me when I was working. Was this practical? Not really, as it meant that I was trying to find the best question, and often lost the listening to find the right question for that situation. These days, having done about 150 hours of coaching as well as the time I completed in my coach training, I am more open to listening to what the client is saying & reflecting on what the right question is, at that time, for that client. And you know what, we move far further as a result, as it becomes personalised, powerful coaching for that client.

As you gain practical coaching experience, you start learning who you like working with which builds niche experience.

Practical coaching can give you more than just the benefit of practicing your skills. It also helps you, if you use a tracking mechanism, to understand what the trends are in the issues that your clients are coming to you with, what kinds of people you like working with or are getting the best results with. This is then powerful information when you complete your coach training to help you build a business on a niche where there is most accessibility to a group plus you have the best level of potential to give a good offer in terms of what coaching products & services you can bring to the table to help them with their issue or goals.

Get feedback from your practicals.

To avoid getting into the “practice makes perfect” trap which can lead to only working on things that others think you are bad at, think about how you want to capture feedback to be more effective. You can either do this at the end of sessions or at the end of the coaching relationship, depending on how much feedback you are looking for.

A simple question which can get good results in terms of feedback is:

“What was most valuable from our coaching today”?

Another good tip is to ask about what worked well and then what you can do to make it even better for the client next time - this assumes that there has been good stuff there already, and helps keep you focused on positive onwards progression.

How can you gain more practical experience?

It’s hopefully clear now what some of the benefits are - but how do you go about building your coaching hours in practice when you are training?

One of the first ways is to find out what is available as a part of your coach training. Often part of the course is that you find clients to work with. There is often a forum / network within the group that will help you to do that. Make the most of these opportunities and if you have more time than the base hours you need for your course, this will help you become even more confident than you would have been with the base hours.

Tell people about the training & coaching you are doing. Find out if you can work with them - get clear up front about how this will work in terms of payment. Maybe you can ask for a testimonial, and that can be your payment, or you ask for a low cost payment, or you ask for a payment as a “professional” coach would. Just make sure it fits both your ethics & values, considers what else happens in the market place, and fits the rules of your coach training school.

Ask your networks to tell others about the training and coaching you are doing. Then, same rules apply!

Make the most of any coach networks and forums you are on, or the availability of co-coaching. Often this is a great way to build your skills through a shared time investment.

What next?

These tips are only really useful and powerful if you take them forwards into your learning as a coach or into the professional development you do as an accredited coach. Find some time to review them in the light of your own coaching business & practical coaching skills.

How can you take them forwards?

Claire Chapman is the coaches coach specializing in working with trainee & newly qualified coaches. Claire focuses on helping coaches to unearth their core strengths, to create space to explore themselves, their coaching & their business, & then to take tangible action to get the right results. Claire works with coaches via telephone for one to one coaching & with the Get Clients Now!(TM) program and other group coaching sessions. Visit the website now to sign up to receive the 30 day e-course “Lessons for Life” what they didn’t teach you at coach training school - and what to do about it. http://www.growasacoach.com

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