Why am I apprehensive about working with a coach?

I’m stuck in my career and my friends can’t give me the answers on how to move up to the next step. I’ve been successful, but now it’s more of the same. I’ve heard about working with a coach, but never having done this before, it seems a bit random. It’s sort of like I can’t work it out for myself and I feel as though I ought to be able to do that.

Also I’m not sure I want to hand over control about something as important as my career to somebody else. I feel like they’re designing my future, not me.

Also, thoughts about confidentiality and how a complete stranger can really get my case stress me out.

What advice do you have for me?

A coach is a companion on your journey

If you’ve never worked with a coach before, it can be difficult to see how a relative stranger can give you answers to questions you’ve been worrying for some time, like how to deal with an impossible boss or how to break through the glass ceiling. You feel as though when asked, you might not give the right answers, or be judged as incapable. These thoughts put you into an ‘away’ state where you see your options narrowing and feel frustrated, confused and even a bit fearful. What you want is the opposite; what neuroscientific studies call a ‘toward’ state. Things open up, you can take in more information and feel upbeat and motivated.

The big surprise is that in the brain, social threat and reward is treated with the same intensity as if it were physical. That’s why a mean remark can wound so deeply, although nothing has assaulted your body. The feelings of loss of status if you ask for support, the uncertainty of working with the unknown and the feeling that you’re losing control can make us procrastinate about working with a coach. It’s just your brain doing what it was evolved to do – protecting you.

Yet we know that the best athletes, CEOs and entrepreneurs work with coaches. Thousands of successful people at all levels in organisations use coaches to help them smash their goals and solve their dilemmas, not because they could not get there on their own, but because they want new insights and solutions quickly.

Like any new adventure, coaching is outside your comfort zone at first. You’re concerned you might be compromised in some way and made to look small. Often you don’t know how the coaching sessions will actually work, and may be wary of being duped.

A good coach is a companion for part or all of your journey. It is likely that your discussions will start out clarifying what problem you want to solve or goal you want to achieve. You might not be clear about it at the start and your coach will help you work it out. Coaches are known for asking good questions. Not questions to trip you up, but questions to help you think. Coaching gives you the time and space to think aloud, without being judged, and to come to your own conclusions. Aspects of problems often whizz round in our heads, like flies in a bottle. Each time we think about the problem, we go round and round like the flies. Only by producing new insights can the problems be solved, and that is what your coach will do, by helping you to think aloud and see new alternatives. These get narrowed to preferred actions, and hence to commitments and resolutions, in line with what you want to achieve.

To set yourself up for success in selecting and enjoying work with your coach, here are four top tips:

• Choose a coach with whom you have the right chemistry. Any reputable coach should be prepared to have an exploratory discussion with you to see if you ‘click’.

• Ask your coach how they will typically work with you. Satisfy yourself that you will be both challenged in your thinking, and also supported.

• A reputable, qualified coach is bound by a code of ethics. Confidentiality is a key client assurance. Check out how your coach has qualified and of which coaching organisation they are a member.

• Don’t expect to be told what to do. It’s your journey, not your coach’s.

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