Coaching 101 - Emma Magenta Coaching

Heeey! So I’m a coach. Cool, right? But wtf is that, you may be thinking.

This is pretty much what I tell my coaching clients when they start with me, to make sure that THEIR idea of what a coach does is the same as MY idea. That way we’re all on the same page, yanno?

I like to explain coaching by comparing it to other things, things that you may be more familiar with.

1. First up, coaching is not therapy.

Coaching tends to be present- and future-focused. Therapy is often more oriented toward unearthing and processing past trauma. If you work with me, I’ll need some backstory about what’s going on. But not much! We’ll mostly be talking about navigating from your present situation toward your preferred future.
Coaching doesn’t address mental illness. Anxiety, sorrow, and stress, for example, are definitely part of the range of normal human emotions. But anxiety disorders, clinical depression, and PTSD are considered mental illnesses. I’m not the right kinda person to help you address those issues, because I’m not a licensed mental health professional. It is possible to be in therapy AND be receiving coaching at the same time. But my default assumption, when we start our work together, is that your mental health is stable.
Coaching is a partnership of equals. In a therapeutic relationship, there is a hierarchy. That’s a good thing–you want your healthcare practitioner to know more than you! In contrast, when I coach you, you’re not my patient. You’re my client. You’re not receiving treatment. We’re working together. I don’t know more than you know.

This last point, “I don’t know any more than you do,” may be confusing. It’s a great transition into my next comparison: consulting.

2. Coaching is not consulting.

Back when I ran a yoga studio full-time, I was sometimes called in as a consultant by less-experienced studio owners. After a decade in the yoga business, I knew a ton of shit that they didn’t know.

I knew how to get a cheap website built, which payroll method was approved by the IRS, when it was time to cancel a class that wasn’t doing well.

As a consultant, my role was listening to woes and offering expert advice. Like, “you need to be paying your team as W2s, not 1099s.”

As a coach, I don’t offer advice.

Instead, I’m listening, reflecting back, holding space, following a trail.

In fact, I often imagine, during a session, that my client and I are standing outside a forest together.

It is the mysterious, complex, daunting forest of their mental environment around a certain problem or situation.

Together we look at the forest.

We start to clear away some of the underbrush.

We tentatively enter, in search of a path.

As we walk together, I ask questions about the forest. The client describes her experience of it. I reflect back to her what she says. I might highlight certain aspects of it.

The more we look around together, the more light cascades down through the trees. The client can see more. The underbrush is less overwhelming. Maybe there’s even a sunlit clearing. And she moves further along the path of her life.

It may seem ludicrous that this could help anybody solve their problems. But my clients can tell you that it does!

So many of us live inside our heads. We’ve been living with harsh voices, accepting limiting beliefs, for so long that we don’t even question them. Which brings me to my final comparison:

3. A life coach is not like a gym coach.

I won’t be conducting an inventory of your personal flaws…

…I’m more likely to ask you how you can lean into your strengths.

I won’t be scolding you about incomplete tasks on your To Do list…

…I’m more likely to look over your list with you, and help you decide which tasks to ditch, delegate, or make less onerous.

I won’t be imposing a regime on you from the outside…

…I’ll help you hear what your quietest inner voice is saying on the inside.

Okay?

In other words, if we work together, it’s because I like you.

I respect you.

I believe in you.

I believe you are capable and resourceful.