Why personal development coaches need coaching too

Over the course of a year and a half, I’ve had three different personal development coaches; each serving a different purpose to help me through challenges I was facing at that time. The commonality between each one was the power of having someone - not a friend, or a mom, or a boss, or a therapist - but someone who is entirely impartial and combines all of the roles these people play in my life. Each of my coaches take a personal, more casual approach to personal development coaching. Deeper than a boss, more professional than a friend and less emotional than my mom. They each have different approaches and use different techniques but all played an important role in navigating me through the dreams, barriers, hopes and fears I was experiencing.

See, I was stuck in a job I knew I wanted to leave. I had a vague game plan in place but making the jump was scary. Through coaching, I learnt how to articulate what my dream job looked like but most importantly, I learnt how to reflect on the role my job played in my whole life. I didn’t want to be that person that works all the time but I embraced the fact that I love working and that feeling of being busy. There were months where I would want to switch gears and focus more on nurturing relationships and building stronger, more meaningful connections with people. There was also a time (something I still experience), where I need to focus on creating balance in my schedule, better prioritising where my time was being spent and maximising my time off. I needed to learn how to make time for the things I really wanted to do, even with a hectic schedule.

These days, I see my coach every couple of weeks and it’s focused on business questions. I ask her the questions I’m afraid to ask anyone else. I open up about the struggles I’m having personally without any judgement. I am given space to just talk, hear my voice out loud say the things that I’ve had in my head and get advice back to work through them. The consistency is key. Consistency with coaching helps build momentum behind my ideas and things I want to work on but it’s still flexible enough that when certain thing crop up, I can bring those into the sessions too. It’s like having your own personal cheerleader - someone you can share the highs, the lows and everything in between. They believe in me, my ideas and the life I’m building for myself. I can’t put a price on how valuable that is to my life. Having that understanding and knowing how powerful coaching is in my own life, helps me go above and beyond for my own clients. Knowing I can help support them in the way that I am supported, is something I am incredibly proud of.