I’ve recently started something I’ve been thinking about for a while – coaching. But for myself, rather than offering it to others. I’d heard from a few people that they found it really useful to talk to someone independent, that it helps them work through certain decisions or situations as well as helping reach certain goals. It made it on my list of “things I’d like to try when I got time” to see if it worked for me, and then serendipitously, I spotted a discounted offer from someone completing coaching training. I decided it was a great, low-risk way to try it and nabbed a slot for my 6 sessions.

What to cover

I can’t lie, I was slightly wrong-footed when I got asked what I wanted to talk about for that first session. It was probably a bad combination of rushing really busily from one thing to another, and not having received coaching before but I think there was a part of me that thought we’d just magically start talking and resolve a load of things. Nope. Instead, it’s on me to bring the topic each time. So suddenly I had 6 topics to come up with to make the best use of the time together, and that was helpful in terms of setting expectations, and also ensuring I set aside time to consider this the conversations in advance.

In terms of content, it’s open to whatever topic I want to bring. It was interesting to realise early on that I could also bring personal things, as well as professional. I’d booked it solely for the professional angle but realised there might be a benefit to talking to someone professional and independent about other aspects of life.

What’s the point?

I heard someone once say that they’d wished they’d spent longer working on their business, rather than for their business, and it really stuck with me. I’ve been throwing nearly my available hours into doing the work to make the money, and I wanted to try and safeguard some time to think about me and where I want to take this business. It’s hard not to feel guilty about taking the time, but committing to the timeslots ahead of time has meant that they’re set.

I also like the idea of testing the waters to see if it’s something I like and get enough from to be worth investing in longer term and at full price.

How’s it going?

A few sessions in and I’m starting to settle into it a bit more. It takes time to get to know each other and build up the trust to cover some of the issues you want to. I also think having experienced manager-employee relationships and being a mentor myself, I found the coaching approach a little awkward to start with. The lack of conversation can be a bit unnerving – it’s a very open-ended way of exploring a topic, with the risk of a lot of quiet space. Being a chattier person, it’s taken a few sessions to be more comfortable being the primary, if not almost, sole talker a whole hour-long session. I like the structure of setting the topic, and deciding where I want to get to by the end of session and then checking in to see if that was achieved. It somehow makes an hour feel a good chunky amount of time to have an unhurried exploration.

What’s next?

So far I’ve brought some work issues and one personal one and genuinely found it useful to look at an issue from different angles and be prompted to come up with my own next steps or even solutions, even if it occasionally it feels like one big conversation with myself!

Now I’ve got into the swing of it more I’m planning to bring imposter syndrome and what’s next for my business as topics before we close. They’re the really meaty issues I want to tackle to get my head in the best possible place for year 2 of self-employment.

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash