Coaching Process

Answer

The Coaching Process

            The coaching process is a critical procedure in which a coach (therapist) guides the client towards realizing their potential, planning for their goals and implementing the goals within their preferred means or potential (Palme & Whybrow, 2014). Out of the seven phases of the coaching process, this essay considers visioning the future and moving to action as the most important phases in the process. This is because, while visioning the future, the client gets an opportunity to believe in their own goals and the possibility of their imaginations becoming a reality (Palme & Whybrow, 2014). At this stage, Smith (2007) notes that the fantastical thoughts have to be clear, elaborate and accompanied by the feeling that comes with the fantasy. Once this actual feeling is felt, the reality is registered and the possibility of attaining the vision is enhanced. Eventually, the client becomes determined to state or note what they will do to get there. This phase is therefore important as it influences the client to develop a plan, and implement it towards ensuring they meet that person they envisioned in their dreams. The next important phase is moving to action and this involves changing behavior or activities towards ensuring that the set goals are met. It is an important phase as it sets the client to his or her path to their desired goal. In the process of adopting new behaviors, it helps build belief in oneself as goals are attained at different levels and allows the therapist to gauge the willingness of the client to meet their goals, as an illustrator of the success of the entire coaching process.

            However, there are challenges in every coaching process. One of the main challenges is thinking for the client especially when they are visioning for the future. Smith (2007) acknowledges that the risk of helping the client to enrich their imagination at this point is always eminent. It gets worse when the coach begins to even tell the client how they are expected to work to meet the set goals (Smith, 2007). This is a challenge since the main role of the coach during the visioning phase is to ensure that the client develops the imagination and determine how great they can be by themselves. In the process, their actions will be influenced by this will to be the best they can be. The coach is only supposed to ensure the goals set are implementable and the client remains focused or objective. To address this, always ask the client about the assumptions you are making, as a way of ascertaining whether that is what they need or the extent to which they are visioning themselves (Ratner & Yusuf, 2015). The other challenge is spending much time in a helping or healing process during the moving to action phase. This is likely to happen as at this phase; clients are likely to complain about their challenges while taking specific actions and these would be disrupting to the objectives of the coaching process (Ratner & Yusuf, 2015). Inasmuch as the coach has to show empathy, he or she also has to remain objective to the goal of coaching, which is to guide the clients past their challenges and allowing them to note the opportunities for progress, and take action. To achieve objectivity, always ask the client whether they feel satisfied with your effort to address a specific issue and when they are satisfied, you move to the next issue. Any concerns can be revisited but the intention remains to move forward to the following issues.