So you want to be a coach?
I had a chat this morning with someone who's considering re-training to become a coach.
It was the perfect opportunity to relay some important points about the field that are often ignored or glossed over.
- It's an incredibly crowded sector, with an unbelievable number of people all claiming to be able to do the same thing. To rely on coaching as your main income, you need to be able to set yourself apart from the masses.
- Coaching training is a mine-field! Courses make all kinds of claims about what they equip you for, but rarely cover the essentials of human psychology from an evidence-based perspective. They emphasise coaching tools and frequently neglect to cover the people with whom you'll be using these tools.
- Start with the end in mind: consider what professional coaching organisation (e.g. ICF, AC) you eventually want to be registered with / be regulated by, and work back from there. That will clarify the amount of training you need, the number of coaching hours you'll need to build up, and requirements around coaching supervision (which is a non-negotiable if you want to be an effective and ethical practitioner).
- Being an effective coach also involved continuing professional development, staying up to date with new discoveries in the science of people at work, and an ongoing commitment to learning and skill acquisition.
- Being a coach is different to being a coaching psychologist. Very different. With significant implications around training requirements, registration, regulation and career options.
There's so much more I could say about this, but now it's time for me to go and be a coaching psychologist with one of my own clients!