Three career coaches share what they learned in a ten-week course. Speaker A gained confidence in letting clients discover their own answers. Speaker B had an "aha" moment about reframing problems, moving clients from a restrictive mindset to a broader perspective. Speaker C realized the coach's job is to support the client's story, not provide the answers.
I am most proud of the growth I'm seeing in my client interactions, and this class really opened up my eyes to more of the coaching perspective that, you know, they have the answers within them. My job is to help them unlock that and creating that space where we can help them draw that out, tapping into their resourcefulness and their creativity.
The biggest aha moment through the last 10 weeks has been around that idea of partnership. I'm trying to remember how the phrase goes. It's how you see the problem is the problem. And so giving them a different idea of how to think through it and that they have all of answers. They just need a partner to help them step back and reassess the situation. So going from that red zone that they might be in with it being a problem, and once shifting to blue zone, has the greater ability to see different perspectives they didn't initially see.
We're not just here to read your resume. We're actually here to be a support to you and to show you how to support yourself, creating a relationship always recognizing there's a next step, right? And being able to see the client as their own hero and see them as their own resource has been incredibly empowering to me. On top of, you know, the fact that it's great for them, it also means that I don't have to have all those answers. I don't have to know everything. I just need to know kind of how to point them in a direction where they can figure it out.
Proud of the fact of The extra confidence that this course has given me, being able to see those nuances in someone's face that they don't necessarily perceive as either an emotional processing or something else that's coming out through their body language and having them come up with more of, um, ahas and things to explore deeper. Previous to this course, I've not really felt I had the wherewithal to consider myself a career coach, and then now being able to use the tools and more of a structure to be more intentional about how I coach versus what I had been doing before.
One benefit that I'm seeing in my personal coaching is that I'm creating that shift into a more client-empowered future, and I'm loving the success I'm seeing there.
Susan’s ICF Educator Award | The Heart Behind the Impact Katy Montgomery, PCC
