How Do I Get Started?
We Coaches after a long period being trained and with the certification in hands are often asked the question,
“So how do I get started?”
Each situation is unique, and yet there are some general suggestions to offer:
- Take time to practice. Enhancing your own skill level will help you develop the efficacy to be more public in time.
- Begin with a person with whom you feel safe and with whom you already have a trusting relationship.
- Videotape yourself in conversations. Use the videos to self-assess yourself.
- Schedule formal times to coach. What gets scheduled gets done.
- Use visual aids such as DVDs.
In addition, you may find some of the following tips helpful:
- If you are a new coach and have served in a different capacity in the past, tell your coachees up front that this is going to look different, feel different and sound different. Nothing fosters mistrust faster that misunderstood intentions.
- Ask for volunteers to be coached. Tell them you are learning a new skill and would like to practice. Most teachers love to assist someone that needs help. After all, that is why they went into teaching in the first place.
- Practice silently before going “public.” For instance, craft paraphrases on a notepad during staff meetings. Craft questions on sticky notes when you are in a team meeting.
- Practice isolated skills. Don’t try to tackle them all at once.
- Trust yourself. You know more than the people you are coaching. No one knows if you forgot some of the elements in a meditative question. No one knows if you forgot to try a summarize and organize paraphrase.
Above all, just get started! One thing we know for sure, you can’t begin helping others on that journey of self-directedness unless you take the first steps!
Cristina Madeira, Certified Executive and Team Coach by ICF
Cristina Madeira Certified Executive and Team Coach by