What is a Coach and what does a Coach do?

A lot of people in the life coaching industry have yet to understand what a coach is and what a coach does. Most people understand what coaches do in terms of sports and are comfortable with the idea of coaches for athletes and sports teams.

Coaches help athletes train and create champions and winners.

They work with athletes, helping them create training schedules and winning mindsets by bringing their experience and insights into the personal characteristics of the athlete and team.

Coaches are not champions themselves — coaches create champions!

When it comes to life, however, the scenario seems to be confused. A lot of people think a coach is someone who inspires you to achieve success in all spheres of life. Other people think a coach is a motivator, your best fan, someone who stands there on the sidelines, watching you run your race and screams, “Yay, go on ahead. You can do it! You can do it! If you truly want, you can do it and I’m here to tell you that and help you win!”

Some people think that a coach is there to listen to all your sorry woes and commiserate with you when you need comforting, a “paid” shoulder to cry upon, whilst others believe that a coach is a sort of expert maestro who can teach you the secrets of life and how to live it painlessly and effortlessly. There are also those who believe a coach is a kind of mystic Guru with special superpowers which they use to manipulate you or the atmosphere surrounding you to shift and resolve all your problems automatically, whereas others firmly believe that the work of a coach is all about mind control, some times with dark undertones and connotations!

Still, others feel that this profession is a passing fad because somebody they know somewhere seems to work as one. A few people even go as far as to believe that coaches are mysterious and evolved Demi-gods who grant all your wishes in exchange for payment! There is also a prevalent and misguided belief that a coach is a perfect being, above all things material and free from all problems related to life and with a tendency to have everything in place at all times! Perfect creatures with perfect lives, without human defects and faults, living somewhere above the rest of humanity.

Whatever your definition of a coach and their work, here is what coaches themselves work with. A coach is a professional with years of study, training, research and their own personal development behind them with specific aims and objectives for their clients. They guide and facilitate understanding, awareness, responsibility, intention, focus, choices, solutions and effective decisions with ensuing practical plans for action.

1. A coach facilitates the emergence of important knowledge and awareness of long-held beliefs that the client is blind to on their own.
2. A coach helps clients dive into their subconscious and work on their own inner programming.
3. A coach brings clients to maturity through the realisation of the complete responsibility for all their thoughts, beliefs, choices, decisions, actions, behaviours and circumstantial conditions.
4. A coach facilitates empowerment with focused and intentional work on the client’s goals and objectives, holding them accountable to their own plans.

A coach does not make any decisions FOR the Client.
A coach is NOT responsible for the client’s decisions, actions and results.

A coach is also human (*gasp*) and therefore, by definition, imperfect and fallible just about like any other professional.

Once a client has identified their limits and goals and is aware of their situation (or not invested in the process or willing to do the work), the job of the coach is over. A coach cannot take the client where the client is unwilling to go, nor can they wave a magic wand to create miraculous results.

The client has to do the work and there are no short cuts to that.

For the rest, a professional coach can help you gain clarity and arrive much faster at your destination, even help you define it, something you may not even know of! A coach is not a shoulder to cry on, a teacher, a father figure, a nurturing mother, your new best friend, your confessor, spiritual mentor, your doctor, psychoanalyst or psychiatrist.

A coach facilitates the change you want.

Working towards improvement and making that change is the responsibility of the client.

A coach works with you and gets you effective results, but only if you do the work.

A coach helps you sift through the fluff and chaos and see the key levers, gears and buttons in your own life and mind. You still have to take charge and operate them.

The Achologist is the official online publication for Achology, the Academy of Modern Applied Psychology for professional practitioners and life coaches.