Sometimes, at cocktail parties and wedding receptions and barbeques, when the “so, what do you do?” question comes from a stranger, I’ll simply say, “I’m a coach.”
Then they say, “oh, like a…like a….sports coach?”
Being someone who has played sports for a total of about five minutes in my lifetime, someone who significantly lowered my high school GPA by cutting PE regularly (out of a desire to avoid humiliation), being someone who knocked the ball out of the park in all the wrong sports (like tennis) the idea of moi, as sports coach, never ceases to amuse me.
Post chuckle, I explain, “No, a life coach…a leadership coach.”
I don’t like the term. For me, “coaching” implies instructing, yelling, arm-waving, and motivating — from the side of the field. Not a resonant metaphor for what I do.
If I were to create a picture for my work, it would look more like sitting down on the floor, crossed legged, across from my client (even though we are actually on the phone), and holding my hands cupped open in the space between us.
In that space we are going to create a welcoming home for their dreams, longings, and authentic self, and then we are going to slay the dragons that get in the way of them living a life that is a brilliant expression of that.
That’s what we do.
For me, coaching is not advising or instructing. I don’t have the content expertise to know about every client’s career field. I don’t know what you should do next — I don’t have those kinds of answers.
What I do have is this: I know what we look like and sound like when the authentic voice speaks. I know what it sounds like when we access inner wisdom. I have a bunch of tools and questions and tricks up my sleeve that can help you get away from the anxious, self-doubting chattering voice in your head and instead settle into a connection with inner wisdom. Inner wisdom is where the advising comes from.
I know how to ask questions or shine a little spotlight to surface where you might be stuck in a limiting belief that’s not true, or where you are just generally cheating yourself of the life you could have. I know how and when we get stopped by fear and what we can do about that.
I know how to help you remember what’s at the core of you, and to live it.
Secretly (so please don’t tell anyone), I don’t think of what I do as coaching. In my heart, I know it to be soul facilitation. Facilitating the emergence of soul. (If you don’t like the term soul, please substitute “essence” or “authentic self” or “the best of a person”— I mean all that too.)
That’s my covert agenda — making sure that what is most beautiful and unique and true in every person gets fully expressed in the world. I know, along the way, you got the message that that core, bare, effortless you in some way wasn’t good enough or couldn’t exactly be trusted or wasn’t right for this world. In fact it is just what this world needs, and I want you to live it, for the sake of your heart, and for the sake of our collective future.
And that is how I coach with love.
What an inspiration!! As I contemplate the idea of doing some healing/coaching work I wondered how to learn the skill. Who would coach me to coach. And you just began with the definition, the meaning, the essence. Thank you.
Oh my…. that sounds absolutely divine. Need to dig into this site a bit more… but this post DEFINITELY got my attention! Thanks for putting it out there! 🙂
Tara,
What a lovely description of coaching! I still get tongue tied when I try to describe what I do but your description presents coaching beautifully!
Melinda
What I love about your description is its orientation toward what the client really wants rather than a problem they may bring to the coaching. That is where I want my focus to be as a coach as well, and it’s all too easy to slip into problem focus, especially since marketing gurus pound coaches with the idea that they must solve a problem. I’m bookmarking this to help me get back to center should I feel myself slipping…
Love it!
Sounds like exactly what I have sought, and found, in the best coaches I’ve worked with and also – interestingly – very much like my approach to teaching yoga!
PS: I think you and Randi Buckley would get on beautifully and perhaps we need to add her to that mutual love fest!
Hi Tara,
This post is really inspiring. I’ve been thinking lately about getting into coaching. I’ve never had a life coach myself though, so I’m not 100% sure how it works.
I have had one or two teachers though who inspired me on a personal level and who sort of played that role in my life. I think it’s because they did exactly what you described- soul facilitation. (Great way to describe it!)
Tara,
that’s the best explanation I ever heard about what I am doing. “Coaching” always sounds wishy-washy, and, especially in German extremely stale.
Everybody has inside him-/herself what he or she needs to take the next step, even if they are scared. I just want to help people to see and trust what’s inside of them.
You worded that extremely well! Thanks!
I love this post, Tara! Come to DC and do a session here! 🙂
I just told my creative coach a few months ago how I felt like I was meant to be a facilitator. I’m still not exactly sure of what…but I totally get what you’re saying.
a truly inspiring and amazing post..
This is so very beautiful.
I never know what to say when people ask me what I do either. Life coach doesn’t sit quite right. I think there needs to be a new term for those of us who are “soul facilitating” (love that!), something that lies somewhere between mental health counseling and coaching. (Wouldn’t it be easier if we could just be simple accountants?? Please, no!!)
Tara, You said exactly what I was thinking. It is magic to hear our own thoughts, said better outside ourselves by someone else.
Until about a month ago I couldn’t bring myself to call myself a coach, for all the reasons you spell out. I wasn’t into RA RA or pushing people toward goals or making them become anything other than who they essentially already are.
I tried out teacher, mentor, counselor. No term sums it up or says it. I tried out facilitator as well. I worked as a facilitator for a long time–but that was mostly meeting facilitation and that is different.
When I talk about the handful of people that in different capacities have transformed my life by bringing me home to myself, I usually refer to them as teachers–whatever form they came in.
Last month I finally let go of my judgments and hang ups about the word “coach” I just decided what the heck, I want to do this work, I do do this work, and more and more what I do looks something like what people think of as ‘life coaching’. So I’ll just call myself a coach so people can knock on my door (or call me on the phone) and then we’ll actually do whatever it is we do, whatever is needed in the moment. Call it what ever you like.
Tara, I’m glad to find your voice in my life.