In today’s guest post Beverley Ireland-Symonds shares her experience from when she was in the early days of her coaching:

Spare Some Time for Coaching and Mentoring

By Beverley Ireland-Symonds

If you’re a newly trained coach in the process of setting up your coaching business you probably have a long ‘To do’ list. Deciding on a niche, writing a business plan and marketing plan, getting business cards printed, a website up and running, gathering resources, deciding on costs and fees, sorting out banking and taxes and a whole host of other things. And of course probably the number one priority for a lot of people – finding and coaching clients.

Now I suspect there may be one thing that is either missing from your list or doesn’t have a very high priority and that’s getting support for yourself. I remember on the first two day introductory course I did in coaching I was advised that all coaches should have their own coach – who could coach and/or mentor.

This sounded like sound advice but I have to admit it just wasn’t on my list of priorities at all some months later. I simply had too many other things to think about and it slipped to the back of my mind. I’d made some good friends on my training course and we’d occasionally Skype or email each other swapping tips and information and occasionally raising any small difficulties we were having.

I remember thinking at one point ‘I’m not sure what I’m doing’ but I didn’t say so because my friends sounded so enthusiastic and contented. I just continued to plod along developing my niche with some successes and the occasional failure.

But after 10 months I was suddenly hit with a real crisis of confidence. I found myself developing ideas that were different from my original niche and I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to be pulled in a new direction. Once that thought had taken hold I then started to question whether I was up to even being a coach. I’m an NLP Coach specialising in confidence. Where was mine? It had all but disappeared.

Then one day, I remembered the conversation about having a coach and knew that I had to do something. The silly thing was that I actually had access to a coach/mentor as part of the coaching training package that I bought. Did I act immediately? No I didn’t – I was too embarrassed. I had this crazy idea that being a coach – also meant I had to be superwoman!

Fortunately I got over that and I sent an email to my coach/mentor with dates for a session and about a week later we spoke on the phone.

I cannot tell you what a relief that call was and I wish I had made it much earlier. After that I had two mentoring sessions (where I received a lot of advice) and three coaching sessions (where I developed ideas, goals and actions).

So what did I get from working with a coach? A lot, but here are some of the key things.

• There’s nothing wrong in experiencing doubts and there’s nothing wrong in asking for help.
• There’s a lot to learn from seeing an experienced coach and their coaching style.
• It’s a valuable lesson to experience coaching as a client.
• I had time to reflect on where I was with my coaching and clarify where I wanted to be.
• I had the chance to discuss the change in direction, why it happened and what it meant.
• I had the opportunity to bounce ideas and thoughts and do some ‘blue sky’ thinking.
• I got excited about coaching again.

Now, I recognise that I’m fortunate to have been able to work with a coach without having to suddenly find additional money. But if you’re just starting out I would advise that you factor in the cost of some coaching and mentoring for yourself and make it a priority to find someone you can work with. You may not hit a crisis of confidence like I did but you may have issues that you need coaching on and those sessions could be a crucial element in your future success.

I’m sure you don’t need any convincing how important the relationship between yourself and your clients is and the positive impact you can have on their lives. Why not sample a bit of that magic for yourself when needed?

About Beverley Ireland-Symonds

Beverley Ireland-Symonds is an NLP Practitioner and NLP Coach, specialising in Confidence Coaching, working with clients both in the UK and America. She writes extensively on a range of issues including self esteem, confidence and personal development and has developed her own online coaching programme.