If You Are Considering Hiring A Coach, Consider This…

My ardent plea to anyone considering hiring a coach of any kind is to inquiry about their credentials.  Not the degrees and certifications they have listed on their websites, resumes, or “About Me” pages.  Do yourselves a favor and ask your perspective coach the questions that will determine their worth and value as a coach.  Ask your prospective coach, when was the last time they identified a personal or professional goal?  Ask him or her to outline the process they took to attain that goal.  Further, ask him or her how often they set and attain goals for themselves.  The answers to those questions will give you so much more insight into the coach’s ability to aid you.  Bottom line, a coach is only as good as the methodology they use.  If they studder or take too long to answer those questions, strongly consider another coach.  The best and most effective qualification to coach others can be found in the coach’s firsthand knowledge and understanding of the goal pursuit, attainment process.  If the coach you are considering does not a rich history of pursuing and attaining goals, there is plenty of reason to doubt his or her capability to aid you in your pursuit attainment journey.  Coaches that live their lives based on these principles are easily & quite naturally able to help their clients maximize their experience and their overall potential.  Once I understood how important this aspect was personally and for my clients, I dialed up my personal efforts.  Since January of this year, I have maintained a quarterly goals list that include  at least 3-5 items and I work aggressively toward accomplishing those goals while journaling my experiences.  From that personal resource, I have a deep well of knowledge from which I can draw to give to my clients during our sessions.  By the grace of God, I have been able to obtain several degrees and certification over the years-all of which I am extremely proud.  But I believe the backbone of my coaching ability is in my personal spiritual journey.  I made note of what I believe is a very strong correlation between my personal practices and the success of my coaching practice.  In January this year, I had 1 client.  Once I put more emphasis on my personal goal pursuit attainment process, my coaching practice exploded to 50 plus clients by March.  I went from having an open calendar to having 6-8 sessions a day for weeks at a time and the rest as they say is history.  Just a little food for thought no matter which side of the exchange you find yourself.