Coach

Identifying success is easier if we know what we are aiming for in the first place. Having a direction, a goal, an idea of how we would like something to be is important within coaching. Having a destination will help us to evaluate when we are making progress and to know if and when we have arrived. Coaching is future focused; what next, what is desired, what would be the ideal outcome in a situation or scenario. Celebrating progress towards how we would like things to be is equally as important as celebrating an outcome. Coaching is an active process and as such a coachee may work towards a goal which through time and space may change and develop as fresh thinking is located. Marking steps along a pathway is one way to heighten our awareness of the headway we are making.

Celebrating may be public or private or a combination of the two. Congruent with coaching, the coachee will know best how they would like to celebrate, it may be a short acknowledgement to themselves, a meeting up with friends, or a flamboyant extended event or series of events. For some, getting round to celebrating successes can be difficult, delayed gratification turns into a postponement which evolves into an event which is permanent shelved. Unfortunately there are some negative associations around celebrating one’s own successes, a perception that you may be ‘blowing your own trumpet’, be viewed as a ‘bighead’ or as a ‘somebody’, when in fact you are just being you. In celebrating successes what ever they may be charges up our psychological batteries, fills us up with positive feelings which help us to acknowledge the progress we have made, contributing to a memory bank on which to draw upon in the future.  Celebrating boosts our confidence and helps us hold ourselves in positive self regard, to value ourselves, enabling us to develop agency in our lives, work, families, communities and beyond.

celebrate

verb

1 commemorate, observe, honour, mark, salute, recognize, acknowledge, remember, memorialize, keep, drink to, toast, drink a toast to.

2 enjoy oneself, make merry, have fun, have a good/wild time, rave, party, have a party, {eat, drink, and be merry}, revel, roister, carouse, kill the fatted calf, put the flag(s) out; N. Amer. step out; informal go out on the town, paint the town red, whoop it up, make whoopee, junket, have a night on the tiles, live it up, have a ball; Brit. informal push the boat out; S. African informal jol; dated spree, go on a spree; rare rollick.

3 perform, observe, officiate at, preside at, solemnize, ceremonialize.

4 praise, laud, extol, glorify, eulogize, reverence, honour, pay tribute to, pay homage to, salute, hymn, sing; archaic emblazon.

This blog post is dedicated with grateful appreciation to the RD1st participants and Deb Barnard and Rivca Rubin for such skillful and artful facilitation.

Trust is at the center of coaching, without trust coaching isn’t possible. Trust between coach and coachee allows the coachee the opportunity of exploration, the expression of fears or doubts, the communication of new ideas and excitement and much more. When a trusting relationship develops between the coach and the coachee it allows the coachee to progressively develop a sense of trust in their own ideas and goals. Coaching works from a understanding that the coachee has all the resources they need to identify goals, consider realities and issues related to the goal, locate options which suit them best and decide on which ones to take forward and when. Learning to trust oneself comes easily for some, for others it can be more difficult to access, accept or allows to happen. When we are trusting we connect with our instinct or intuition. There may be an absence of conscious reasoning but nevertheless a gut feeling persists. The origin of the word trust comes from the Old Norse traust, from traustr meaning ‘strong’. When we are strong we are able to perform our chosen thinking or action well and powerfully, holding firm in our reasons for taking a particular course of action.

noun
1 confidence, belief, faith, freedom from suspicion/doubt, sureness, certainty, certitude, assurance, conviction, credence, reliance.

2 responsibility, duty, obligation.

3 safe keeping, keeping, protection, charge, care, custody; trusteeship, guardianship.

verb
1 have faith in, put/place one’s trust in, have (every) confidence in, believe in, pin one’s hopes/faith on; rely on, depend on, bank on, count on, be sure of, be convinced by, swear by; confide in.

2  hope, expect, think likely, dare say, imagine, believe, assume, presume, suppose, take it; informal guess.

3 entrust, put in the hands of, allow to look after/use.

4 consign, commit, give, hand over, turn over, assign, commend.