Life coaching has a bit of an image problem.  I’d like to address some of the issues with coaching.

Coaching is often presented as ‘live your life like me’, showing pictures of the coach at the beach or walking in the forest. It’s not useful for coaches to sell their life as a coaching service.  It’s not useful for clients to be asked to idolise their coach.  You don’t need to have a pristine life to be a coach.  My life is not and should not be for you – it isn’t all beaches and blue skies.  It’s as much about the positives as the tough bits – it can be about looking deeply into the dark recesses of your life and mind.  This can be challenging and uncomfortable – but worthwhile activities usually are.  I don’t work 10 hours a week and spend the rest in the forests – I work as hard as you do.  My coaching practise and your coaching result is better for it.

Coaching is unregulated and coaches are undertrained.  It is certainly true, particularly in the early days of coaching, that many coaches didn’t undertake any training.  Those coaches were pioneers of the industry and many of these ‘founding mothers and fathers’ are still practicing very effectively.  Unfortunately the idea of ‘flowing’ into coaching without any formal training or practise has led a lot of coaches to take a mystical or holistic path which doesn’t suit everyone.  These days, like a lot of professional practices, the majority of successful coaches undertake training to start them off, and they continue their professional development and learning throughout their coaching career.

Coaching is such a broad industry – what exactly is it?  The breadth of the coaching approach can mean that coaching is so all-encompassing that it loses focus.  This breadth certainly doesn’t help when trying to describe what it is!  The lack of regulation does allow real flexibility for coaches to create services which are niched in line with their clients’ goals.  However, it is important to recognise that coaching does have boundaries – it is not psychotherapy, counselling, mentoring or training.  Coaches don’t ‘fix’ their clients or give them advice.  If there is any indication that one of my clients requires therapy or advice, I will ask them to seek help with someone who has the right skills.

Coaching is delusional – it says that you can be anything you want to be.  It’s an unfortunate side effect of our Western society that ‘positive thinking’ has somehow become ‘follow your dreams and you can achieve anything’.  The internet and social media has brought boundless possibilities to our doors and it’s fantastic that we can now see so many opportunities.  But – it is not realistic to suggest that you can do anything you want to.  Bob, the Edinburgh guy who suffers with drug and alcohol abuse, hasn’t seen his family in years, and lives on the edge of hypothermia because he’s homeless – is it helpful to tell him he can be anything he wants to be?  Research shows that positive thinking really does make a difference and there is nothing wrong with aiming high.  However, small, incremental, ongoing improvement towards a realistic goal is a much more effective approach for us mortal humans who recognise that they won’t be an astronaut or the next ladies Wimbledon champion.   

Life coaching is just another pyramid scheme.  Coaches often come to coaching because they got coaching themselves, and it helped them.  Coaches often use their own coaches to help them.  Clients pay coaches who pay other coaches and the pyramid gets bigger and bigger.  There is some truth to the fact that ‘soft’ services such as psychology, counselling and coaching are self-regulated and they require their practitioners to themselves undertake supervision.  This supervision is designed to keep us all on track with the core purpose.  It is unfortunate that increasing amounts of people are driven to seeking and getting real help from mental health and counselling professionals.  The demand for coaching has grown as this demand has grown.  Evidence from research and client feedback shows that coaching is a positive addition to our lives and work.  Coaching helps!