What inspired you to enrol with The Coaching Academy?
I’ve always been interested in coaching, so when I decided to formally study the subject, I looked at different ways of qualifying and found TCA offered me the best flexible option, enabling me to combine studying for a new qualification whilst working and travelling overseas. As someone who enjoys ‘learning by doing’, practising coaching and receiving feedback throughout the qualification, suited my learning style and really helped me to see the progress I was making whilst completing the qualification. It also helped me to apply coaching theory.
What was/is your profession before becoming a coach?
My career background has always been HR / Learning and Development focussed. I’ve held corporate roles in Financial Services and the Recruitment Industry with senior management and Board responsibilities. Over the last 12 years, having established my own consultancy training business, much of my time has been spent working in the Middle East designing and delivering learning and development training courses.
What was the most rewarding part of your training/journey?
As soon as I started the training, I received coaching almost every week for the duration of the qualification – this was probably the most rewarding part of the programme for me. I worked with a number of coaches, all with different styles. They enabled me to identify a range of goals that I wanted to achieve and work towards achieving them. Going through the coaching process as a ‘client’ helped me to fully understand the difference coaching can make to your life – it certainly had a big impact on mine!
How did you fit coach training into your busy life?
At first this was an area that I struggled with as I became a little over-whelmed with balancing scheduled practice coaching, studying, Saturday workshops and work commitments. To overcome this, I set a more realistic target date to complete the qualification and re-arranged my working week to incorporate coaching commitments. Better time management from my side, along with TCA’s flexible learning options; provided me with opportunity to juggle studying with work and home-life.
Where are you now? How are you using your coaching skills?
Becoming a certified coach by completing TCA’s Life Coaching Diploma was one of my 2018 goals and I am proud to have achieved it. Unlike some other qualifications, I’ve found the learning has stuck with me and has changed my outlook and approach to many life situations. The programme has given me the opportunity to learn new things about myself and re-discover new ambitions and goals for all aspects of my life. The process has been challenging and very exciting!
Using coaching tools and techniques are now part of my daily life and I enjoy how this has positively impacted my work/life balance. I’m hungry to learn more and find myself drawn to many new resources to further develop my coaching practice and apply to my work.
As side from the above, I have incorporated a coaching practice into my business and now have coaching clients! It’s a real privilege to work with people who are using coaching to make positive changes in their life.
What is your coaching niche and why did you choose it?
It’s early days but so far clients have come to me through previous work I have done with them in my role as a HR/L&D Consultant either in the UK or the Middle East. I have not 100% decided on a ‘coaching niche’ but I find I am gravitating towards working with people in business who wish to make changes to achieve their life goals.
People who are looking to become qualified as a professional coach?
Coaching is not for everyone, so my advice is to find out as much as you can about the subject and what being a professional coach really means. Then consider how passionate and curious you are in applying ‘coaching’ to yourself, before you consider how you can apply it to others. I did a lot of research before I started my qualification and the most useful was attending TCA’s Free 2-Days. The workshop left me fired up to learn more!
Those currently in training with TCA?
Enjoy meeting new people, enjoy being stretched out of your comfort zone and saviour the journey! From a studying point of view, try and ensure you do something each week (no matter how small), that contributes to moving you forward as a professional coach.
Coaches that are about to qualify?
If you need extra support to get through the last stages of the qualification, ask your coach for support. The encouragement I received from the coaches I worked with, made a huge difference in getting me across the line and was a constant reminder to ‘begin with the end in mind’!
TRANFORM LIVES THROUGH COACHING
If you’re interested in learning more about coaching and you’d like to fire up your life and career with coaching, why not come along to our Foundation in Life Coaching Course and learn more?
The Coaching Academy was established in 1999, and is now the world's largest coaching school.
In that time we have trained over 14,000 people to become life coaches.
We are accredited by the International Coach Federation and the Association for Coaching, and we're rated 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot.
