My courses》"What if I won't be able to help someone? Or even harm them?"
And what if I’ll harm someone while working as a coach? And what if I won’t know how to help them? And what if the client will not make progress?
So maybe it’s better to give up on the dream of becoming a professional helper. Maybe it’s better to just admit that I’m not made to be a coach and just give it up.
No.
This is not the solution.
There wasn’t a coach in-the-making who didn’t have such thoughts cropping up.
We’re dealing with people’s lives and we have a big responsibility on our shoulders.
If you see yourself as someone who has the ability to help others, and you enjoy it, and you know that others can benefit from the help you already offer them, then giving up on the thought of becoming a coach is simply NOT the solution.
What is better, is first of all, to give it a chance. To assess how you are already helping people and to learn to grow from there to become a professional helper.
It’s better to learn skills and tools and practise them first in a supportive and non-judgemental environment, together with others who learn to do that too.
It’s better to learn how to work, to slowly assess how you fit into the profession, to gradually practise first with other people who want to achieve the same, then with people who present “not so complicated” challenges, and only then, and when you feel that you’re ready, to move on to offer help to real clients.
These worries are good.
They mean that your ethics are in the right place and that you want to work to the benefit of the clients. It means that you’ll strive to assist and help your client and will put them in the centre of the process.
But if you’ll keep being worried, and you’ll freeze or give up, all the good which you can offer will be wasted.
If we won’t try, we’ll never know if we are suitable to help professionally. And what good is that?
The solution is therefore to give it a chance;
to want to learn how to work professionally;
to learn the skills and tools.
A good coaching course will provide you with all that.
Look for a course which will include the following:
Teaching the difference between a friendly way of helping and a professional way of helping
Teaching the tools and skills needed for a professional helper: Safety, listening skills, dealing with feelings and emotions, empathy (to name a few)
Will be based on a strong ethical code of the profession
Setting professional boundaries
Will include a lot of practical practice with real problems which will be presented by real people
Be mostly face-to-face. It's people we're talking about here after all and the personal connection is key.
This is a good indication that the outcomes for you will be
that you’ll know how to help people while focusing on them, on their empowerment and growth. You’ll be able to assess the process whether you’re helping them enough. With that you’ll be able to help them achieve the change they wish to achieve. And you’ll minimise the chance of harming them in the process.
So are you able to work as a coach? There’s only one way to know it: To learn how it’s done, to get feedback on your work and once you’re ready, to try it for yourself.
I believe in people’s ability to help others. And I believe that you can do it too.
Noa Brume - Coaching trainer at the ICCI
