How You Show Up Matters (in your coaching practice)

How You Show Up Matters…………..(In Your Coaching Practice)
A blog post by Joanna Bloxham

 As coaches, it’s very easy for us to be bogged down with questions to ask, be they, open, hyperthetical, challgenging or probing.   These are important, however how we show up and hold space for others plays an even greater role. Woody Allen said ‘80% of success is showing up’.

So let’s take a closer look at how we prepare to show up.    For example, if a coachee arrives looking distracted from back to back meetings, then the coach will need to be focused and composed.

Preparing to Show Up

Peter Hill encourages Focus, Openness and Energy to help with preparation for the coaching session.

Focus: This may be allocating time to do some clear breathing exercises to bring the mind back to the present and to remind ourselves this is about holding space for our clients. This includes avoiding  mobile and media notifications.   Just taking ten minutes to be still and present is all it takes.

Openness: Being open and receptive is key and a good measure to get ourselves in the right frame is to consider what else is going on for us in our lives, physically, end emotionally as potential ‘distractors’ that may inhibit us being fully present.

Energy: A good check in for our energy levels and state of readiness is simply to remember to eat and sleep well.  It may sound obvious, but both will impact our visual body language as well as our tone of voice.

Reflecting on How You Showed Up

 

As much as preparation is important, so too are your reflections to understand where your energy level was throughout the session.   When l first started coaching l noticed l took copious notes and this was equally taking my energy as l was listening to write versus listening to understand.

You might want to consider using a scaling measure to plot your reflections from where you are now to where you want to be, as a coach who shows up.  What is distracting you from showing up?

Helping You Prepare

Take a look at our BSC blog ‘preparing a coaching space’

And Book a supervision session to explore any areas of your coaching practice with our expert team and add to your continuous professional development (CPD).

A Blog post by Joanna Bloxham for BSC