How Does Coaching for Communication & Confidence Work?

Most life coaches will work with you linguistically – that is, through speech and words. Depending on their training background and coaching skills, they might make use of tools such as personality analyses, questionnaires, or even physical props, and activities ranging from meditation to painting. A coach I know even uses water sports in her work!

In addition to speech and words, some coaches are trained to work with emotions and the physical body as well (also known as somatics). This is a powerful and holistic method of coaching known as ontological coaching, that is capable of creating long-term, transformation. Because a practitioner of ontological coaching can work with not just one, but three aspects of the client, this method of coaching can accommodate the client’s personality and offer much more possibilities for discovery. You can learn more about ontological coaching here.

Whatever the coaching process or medium, most effective coaches would base their work on established concepts and deep studies of the topic that they are offering help for, which you should ask about when you are trying to find a life coach. Listen to them and consider: does it make sense? Does it spark curiosity or awe for you? And how well are they able to explain it to you? As Einstein said, If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. These will give you hints of their coaching skills and a feel of what it might be like to learn from them.

Another obvious consideration is how they learnt their craft; what’s the level of rigor in their training? One coach might have taken a 3-day course while another may have labored a year. What was the theory and practicum like? Obviously, coaching skills is a big part of the consideration. Along with that, I would also ask if the coach had ever been coached; has he or she done the same work on themselves that you are now entrusting them to do with you? How does life coaching work with a coach who has neither been coached nor experienced the process from a client’s point of view? I personally find this difficult to imagine.

Beyond training and coaching skills, the personality and life experience of the coach will be the next determinant of the coaching experience. Remember that coaching is an intensively human-to-human process, so it will inevitably involve what the coach brings to the table. You could engage two coaches with very similar skills and yet come away with two very different sets of insights that both work for you!

What any professional and competent coach should be able to do then, is to keep the work “clean”, so that the client is the true owner of all learning, decisions or solutions that emerge during the coaching process.

Lastly, to properly answer how does coaching for communication and confidence work, there are two other important questions that beg to be answered, before any effective coaching is possible:

• Am I honestly aware that there is something I need to improve or change?
• Am I open to have a life coach to help me through it?

If you can say “yes” to the above two questions, you are ready for a coaching conversation!

It’s also important to note what coaching is NOT:

• coaching is not therapy
• coaching is not counselling
• coaching is not consulting
• coaching is not mentoring
• coaching is not teaching (though there should be plenty of learning)
• coaching is not a course or training program

Generally, unless it’s a sport or a performance-centric activity (such as a specific technique that’ll help you), your coach should NOT:

• tell you what to do
• give you advice
• train you

I would say that in this sense, what a coach doesn’t do is also an important indicator of his or her coaching skills.