My courses》 7 tips to help you organise your studies on the ICCI courses

Many of our students on the Coaching training are taking the courses while working in a full-time job and having a family to care for.

Not always easy to juggle.

But I believe that life shouldn't interfere when fulfilling your wishes. On the contrary: I say "Make those wishes part of your life".

I did it myself, I still do, but I thought it would be better if I asked a few other people how they've done it, to be inspired.

So I interviewed a number of our former students and asked them for their tips on how to be on top of your studies when training to become a coach. I added to that from my own experience.

Here’s how to do it:

7 tips to help you organise your studies on the ICCI course

1. Register as early as possible- This will mean that you’ll receive the Course Handbook before the course begins and that you can start looking at the course and its structure well in advance, have a look at the specified requirements and learning goals, and start thinking about how you wish to organise yourself and your time.

2. Get hold of the books from the list of required study literature. Start looking at them and if possible, begin reading and summarising. This will give you a great advantage later in terms of time spending on reading while in the course. It’s also a known thing, that when we are faced with studying materials which we’ve seen before, we’re more likely to retain what we learn, so reading the books now only going over them again later, is actually a great thing.

3. Get yourself on our mentoring scheme – The courses’ mentors are there to help and support you. This includes any question about getting organised with your studying materials. All our mentors have been students on such courses before and are there to share from their experience and the experience of others. You can get on these scheme as soon as you’ve registered.

4. Take notes – It’s very important that you take notes during the course, and by that I mean the training days, the peer groups time and any other activity regarding the course. Keep a log of things which happened, things which have been discussed, feelings which you had and any other thing which comes up. It’s advised that you do that not just during the training days but also after they’re finished because it’s very likely you’ll be so busy exercising and involved in discussions during the day, that you won’t have time to write, so just do that right after. These notes will come helpful in writing both your Professional Development Self-Reflection and Personal Evolvement Self-Reflection essays.

5. Form a Peer-Group – and do that as soon after the first training day. Peer-Groups are groups of 3-4 students who get together in order to exercise the different exercises from the training days and discuss literature and any material or subject which you learn or come across as part of the course. You need to have a certain number of hours with a peer-group over the time of the course and students report that this is one of the most useful and beneficial part of it.

6. Write down all the obstacles you may have – Make a list of everything which can disturb you from focusing on the course and its requirements. Then sit and write next to each obstacle what you can do to overcome it. For example: Are you in a full time job and have very little time to study? Then possible solutions can be: *Talking to your boss and sharing that you’re studying- they might help you reduce some of the work load or even free you for a couple of hours a week if you show that this course will help you professionally later (which it is very likely what will happen). *Asking your family to support you by taking more responsibility in the house. *Making sure you don’t take work home etc. When we have the solutions in front of us, it’s more likely that we overcome our obstacles and things look less scary to deal with. (This is also a lovely coaching tool by the way…)

7. Have a vision of what it is you want to achieve and when - Once you’ll have the Course Handbook, the books and also hear the in-depth overview of the course on the 1st training day, I suggest that you sit and visualise how you wish things to work for you: How and when you want things to happen? Where do you see yourself in a year from now? In a year from finishing the course? This will help you focus on what needs to be done. We have a lovely visualisation exercise for you for the first training-day and we're very much looking forward to share it with you.

And most important… Remember to have fun. You’re about to embark on one of the most amazing journeys of your life: to learn, to develop and explore yourself and your personal skills.

We're looking forward to seeing you on the next course.

Noa Brume The ICCI courses co-ordinator and trainer

* If English is not your first language, then take note that some of the books might be translated to your language. This should help the reading.