If you’ve done any kind of reading around the topic of coaching, or even attending a training or two you’ve probably come across the mention of beliefs.

If you have already done some work with clients, or observed another coach at work you’ve probably experienced first hand how someone’s beliefs can influence the experience of a situation and their behaviour.

It’s not just your client’s beliefs that can affect the direction that a coaching session takes – your beliefs about coaching can also have an effect. This is not necessarily a bad thing but knowing what these are will let you utilise these to strengthen your work as a coach.

It will also aid you to set your potential clients expectations of what working with you is like and potentially help you in choosing the clients you want to work with and those you want to refer elsewhere.

Some of the beliefs you have may have been ones that you got from the training you have attended. You may have attended a coach training that left you with a belief that to be a coach you never give advice. Perhaps there is a different belief that you were taught – maybe something about the correct way to market yourself etc.

This isn’t a piece about how beliefs are formed or how to change limiting beliefs. This is an invitation for anyone who coaches to become aware (using whatever method, techniques or questions they want) to the beliefs that you have about coaching and what it means to be a coach.

From there you can choose to play with any beliefs you have, if they are working the way you’d like and decide if you want to keep them – or not.

One of the beliefs that I have is that the more exposure to different approaches, attitudes and techniques, the more flexibility a coach has when working with a client. For me, that’s a useful belief. I believe that the flexibility means I can tailor-make the work I do specifically to the individual and offer a bespoke service. It also has the extra benefit that I meet and connect with some fascinating people.

That belief in the importance of a range of opinions etc is also why I’m inviting a different guest author to post on a Friday. If you are interested in becoming a guest author please contact me. Perhaps you want to share what some of your beliefs are, or to cover something entirely different you think would be of interest to coaches/ those interested in coaching.