Finding the right coach means matching up with someone that has the experience that you are looking for, that can create the right setting and relationship for you to open up, and is able to guide you in the right direction according to the goal you wish to achieve.
It is not easy to find the right coach, but in this post, I will guide you and show you how to do this. I will also show you a tool that will make this process much easier.
In this post you will learn:
- How to understand what you wish to achieve
Knowing where you want to get to is important both for you and for your coach. You will know who is most suited for you, and your coach will know how to be more effective during the journey.
- Understanding and not judging your coach
Be open to accepting help and getting to know your coach free of judgmental thoughts. It will be easier for you to understand if he is the right coach for you.
- What to look for in a coach
Life and professional experiences before becoming a coach are the first things I would look for when it comes to choosing a coach. How can we relate? What do we have in common? What can I learn? These are the first questions I would seek an answer to.
- The importance of empathy and communication
Normally coaches do what they do because they enjoy being with other people and creating good relationships. Anyway, YOU need to feel good with your coach, feel understood and at ease when expressing yourself.
- The best tool to find a coach
We have created a simple but effective tool that will help you find the right coach in seconds. A coach directory where you can find someone waiting for you. A real opportunity to find a coach online!
Let’s go into detail and see each point according to my experience.
1. How to understand what you wish to achieve
What is it that you want your coach to help you with? What is your goal? What do you wish to have achieved at the end of your journey with your coach?
For example, if you want to find a life coach that can help you change something in your life, you need to be clear on which aspect you want to work on.
It is important to know what you are aiming at. It doesn’t need to be a detailed plan, but you need some idea that will help you understand what aspect of your life you want to improve are change.
If you haven’t found out yet what you want to achieve, but you really want to be coached, then here’s a simple workout to do that will help you.
It requires a notepad, a pen (or iPad, pc, smartphone if you prefer technology) and 5 minutes of focus!
Feel free to follow the flow of your thoughts.
Write down what is happening in your life:
- what you don’t like
- what you like
- what you would change and what you would keep as it is
- write about your dreams and desires
- write about what is really making you angry right now
At the end of this workout, if writing down your thoughts was enough to have a better idea of your goals, then good for you. If it wasn’t enough, then here’s the next step of the workout.
Once you finished writing, go back and read what you wrote, but underline all the sentences that contain these words:
“I wish I could”, I would like”, “I am tired of”, “I hate this/that”, “I want”, “I don’t want”, “I am tired of”, “It is time to” … You get it.
These sentences contain the truth about what you wish to change or improve in your life.
Do you need a coach that can support you in your new job?
Or maybe you wish to change your career and you need a coach that can help you take the first steps?
Do you need the support of a coach to understand better your inner world and create more meaningful relationships with others?
You can easily understand that these are all quite different goals and having an idea of which direction you wish to follow will help you select a coach according to their experience, interests, education, and field of specialization.
This brings us to the second important point to keep in mind when looking for a coach.
2. Understanding and not judging your coach
Before the internet era, coaches, psychologists, lawyers, doctors, and all of the professionals that offered their services had the “luxury” of meeting their potential client in person or having someone else recommend them and promote their services to other people.
Nowadays, internet and social media replaced the “meeting in person” and gave us a chance to know more about a coach through articles, blog posts, websites pages or social media profiles and gather a lot of information to build a mental picture of that coach and decide if he/she is the right match for us.
This is great, it makes things much easier and quicker, but in my opinion, social media profiles bring people to easily judge and jump to conclusions without trying to understand if that coach has what you are looking for.
You cannot understand if you both share the same moral and ethics if you don’t know each other better. You might miss an opportunity to meet a great coach that could make a big difference in your life.
To avoid this, we created a profile page for each of our coaches and let you easily meet them by contacting them directly to share your stories and bool a discovery call.
3. What to look for in a coach
First, I suggest that you start by understanding the coach’s background before looking for certifications. What experience does the coach have? What is his background? Does he have any specialization?
Once you have a clear idea of what your coach knows, it will be easier for you to relate to him because you might have similar experiences.
We have coaches with a background in aviation.
We want you to feel that your coach fully understands you.
Aviation is a complex industry and not everyone understands how it works. You would need to spend a lot of time explaining how things are done in aviation, or how the quality of your life is affected by the lack of routine, or even explain in detail more technical aspects of working in aviation.
To cut to the point and start getting coached from day one, the coaches that you find on Aviationcoaching.com have a background in aviation and know how you feel and understand what is going on in your industry.
Second, I suggest you look for certifications. Personally, I don’t find it a crucial requirement, but it can be something to which you want to give importance. Being certified means that there has been a good number of hours in coaching others before receiving the certificate as a professional coach.
You might also work in a company that requires you to be coached by certified professionals. Whatever the reason, it is important, but I wouldn’t make it the first requirement when looking for a coach.
4. The importance of empathy and communication
Look for empathy and try to relate to the coach through the words that he or she decided to use to describe themselves on their profile page or personal website. This might not be enough, but it’s a starting point. You will always get more information once you contact your future coach for the first time!
Keep in mind that if someone decided to become a coach most probably has a natural propensity to relate to others in an empathic way.
Coaches are interested in making people’s lives better.
They wish to be at service to someone else and this makes it easy to build a good and trusted relationship.
It still takes an effort to create the right setting and the right chemistry for you. You might be someone that is looking for a coach that can push you to get out of your comfort zone, or maybe you prefer a coach that nurtures you.
Whatever you are looking for, find a coach that understands you. Follow your instinct and ask questions to know more about the coach.
5. The best tool to find a coach
I created Aviationcoaching.com to make all of this very simple. Why is it easy to find a coach?
Because we create a simple tool that allows you to filter according to your interest or location. You might want someone that has a specific interest or experience, e.g. a pilot that converted his career in coaching, or maybe a career coach that worked as head of HR in several airlines.
You might prefer someone that is closer to you by location. You can easily find a coach writing the location you are living in.
This is how it works.
How to find a coach.
1. Go to the Find a coach page.
2. In the search bar write the type of coach you are looking for (life coach, career coach, transformational coach, etc.).
3. If you wish to look for a coach according to your location, then enter the location in the second half of the search bar.
4. You can also scroll down and search according to the category or on the map that shows where the coaches are located.
Easy, isn’t it!
Read the profile of the coach you selected. The best thing to do is to push that “Contact me” button and write to a coach, or to more than one, so you can make a comparison.
You can find other points that can help you find the right coach for you in Amanda Parker’s article – How to choose the right coach for you.
I hope that up to now this post gave you clarity on how to find the right coach and that you can soon get in touch with the coaches listed on our site.
Now, let me tell you more about my experience.
How I met my first coach
I started looking for a coach at the beginning of this century. It was unusual to search for a coach on internet, very few had a personal website, so the only way to get references for a coach that could match my needs was from other people and their network.
I had met a person during my university years. He was specializing in psychology and was working as a coach. I tried a session for free and got to know him better and eventually started my coaching sessions.
He helped me a lot. Even if there was a big age difference, I found that I could talk freely, and I experienced right from the first sessions that things were changing.
After several years I met another coach that was extremely helpful during my transition into becoming a coach myself. These experiences made a difference in my life and still today I remember all the things I learned thanks to their guidance.
It’s easy to start getting coached. The sooner you start, the sooner you will benefit from it.
Hopefully, you can also find the right coach for you and start your life-changing journey.
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