People come to coaching for all sorts of reasons.

Sometimes something is clearly wrong. Other times, nothing is particularly wrong, but something isn't quite working either.

There might be a lack of direction. Priorities have become blurred. Relationships aren't where they should be. Work has started consuming everything around it. Or perhaps there's simply a growing gap between the person we want to be and the way we're actually behaving.

An outside perspective can be useful in those moments.

But coaching isn't someone else arriving with the answers.

At its best, coaching creates the space to examine our thinking, challenge some assumptions and look more deliberately at the decisions we're making. A good coach can ask questions we haven't considered and occasionally the ones we'd rather not answer.

But they can't do the work for us.

Before starting individual coaching, there are three things worth considering. They won't necessarily solve the problem. But they will make the conversation that follows considerably more useful.

1) Be of Service

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. - Mahatma Ghandi

You may have heard this before, but it bears repeating: Life is not all about you. Unfortunately, we live in a society that frowns upon criticism, promotes a scarcity mentality, and accepts ‘the blame game’ and finger pointing instead of demanding accountability. What this amounts to is disconnection on a major scale. So many people are without direction because all their energy is invested in service of themselves. If you want direction, the easiest place to start is by finding a worthy cause. If you want to cut off the internal rehashing of your own problems, invest that precious time towards solving someone else’s. They might even return the favour one day, which could provide that outsider’s perspective you’re looking for.

2)  Own Your Decisions. ALL of Them.

Life is the sum of all your choices. - Albert Camus

Every situation demands choice, and each choice will result in a different outcome. In some cases, our choices might include a decisive action (take a new job or not, stay in a team or not, go left or right).  In other cases, though we might not have control over the action, we can still choose to reframe how we view it. 

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. - Viktor Frankl

The moment we feel we are without choices is the moment we become truly powerless. But that’s the thing: no matter what the situation, we are never without a choice. You always have with you the tools that need to claim your power.  Ironically, this can be a somewhat scary proposition. It means that you are where you are because of your previous choices, and where you go depends on what choices you make from here. If you have power over every choice, whether active or reactive, then you, and you alone, bear the responsibility for their results.

3) Prepare to Sacrifice

The price of excellence is discipline. The cost of mediocrity is disappointment. - William Arthur Ward

If you want to effect significant change in your life, you need to be willing to invest significantly in the outcome. Whether that is time, money, energy, or vulnerability, this investment will take commitment.  Do not be lazy when it comes time to do the hard work. To make your self-improvement a priority, you will likely have to move other things down the to-do list. You might also have to endure some unpleasant things, such as:

• Physically or emotionally stressful circumstances
• Removing toxic people from your life
• Learning new skills
• Spending money on personal development (such as individual coaching)
• Disappointing people if you determine certain projects are no longer in line with your priorities
• Committing to late nights and early mornings
• Being honest with others so that they might help you out of your rut

Whatever is needed or required for you to refocus your life, you are the one behind the wheel. Will you take the smooth, easy road, or will you venture into untraveled terrain? In other words, what comforts are you willing to give up in order to get where you want to go?

Coaching Doesn't Remove Responsibility

Service, choice and sacrifice will look different for everyone. So will coaching.

There isn't a neat sequence of questions that produces the right answer, because the coach isn't the person who has to live with the consequences. That's important.

Good coaching shouldn't create dependence on the coach. It should help us think more clearly without them. It can provide perspective. Challenge assumptions. Expose contradictions. Help us recognise patterns in our behaviour that are considerably easier to see from the outside.

Sometimes it will confirm what we already suspected. Sometimes it won't. But ultimately, the decisions remain ours.

At The Eighth Mile, that's an important part of how we approach coaching. We're not particularly interested in telling capable people how to run their lives. We are interested in helping them examine the way they're thinking, the choices they're making and whether those choices are actually taking them where they say they want to go.

Because coaching can create the conditions for change. It can't make the change on our behalf.