Personal & Career Coaching

“It’s not what happens to you, it’s what you do with what happens to you that counts.”

Who Is Coaching for?
Coaching is for people who want to significantly change their lives to create a higher quality of life than they presently have and who are willing to take action to achieve that life. They seek coaching because they need help moving to a higher level. Coaching is not just about getting a better job. Work is a part of life but not the whole of it. Those who seek all their life satisfaction from their work are setting themselves up for disappointment. Coaching is about creating a balanced life where family, friendships, community and pleasure are appreciated as fully as workplace success.

Issues that bring people to coaching are:

• feeling unfulfilled and unchallenged in their current work roles
• being in unsatisfactory personal, marital and social relationships
• dissatisfaction with your current level of prosperity
• wanting a higher quality of life and achievement
• wanting balance in their life/work relationships
• seeking specific goals: a promotion, a raise, better health
• procrastination, putting off doing what needs to be done

Is Coaching just another word for therapy?
No. Coaching is a partnership of two equals. Your coach believes that you are capable of achieving the goals you set for yourself. Where you may need help is in identifying goals, prioritizing your time/resources to achieve those goals and learning new strategies to achieve them.

Therapy looks to the past to grapple with emotional and cognitive issues. Coaching sets goals for the future and provides new supports while helping you mobilize all your resources to achieve these goals. If emotional and attitudinal issues get in the way therapy can be a useful adjunct.

Coaching Methods
Coaching uses the personal relationship between a coach and client to achieve the following:

1. To set challenging goals that will call forth your best. Your level of aspiration determines your level of achievement. Your Success Associates coach will help you connect with deeply held but often unarticulated goals. When you connect with such goals they provide you with a new level of motivation and passion. Your Success Associates coach helps you brainstorm goals, access priorities and make choices. Lack of deciding on goals is just as cruel a form of procrastination as not acting on the goals you already have.
2. To build self-esteem by recognizing past successes and by creating new ones. We will help you feel good about yourself, not by resting on your past successes but by building on them.
3. To turn goals into reality by developing a step-by-step goal action plan. We start by setting small achievable goals that lead to success experiences. These experiences build motivation, self-esteem and lead to greater successes in the future.
4. To provide support and accountability in a positive, affirming manner reinforcing your ability to succeed. We all like support but resist accountability. Yet when accountability is provided in a positive, constructive manner your results will astound you. Part of being supportive is recognizing and dealing with negative attitudes and self-defeating behaviors and knowing that you can choose to take a different attitude. There is a traditional folk song that illustrates this viewpoint:

   
   “One ship sails east; the other sails west
   While the very same breezes blow.
   But it’s the set of the sail and not the gale
   That gets you where you want to go.”

5. To use time as an ally, with a patient yet careful utilization of time to move forward, to heal and to grow in ability to contribute. Coaching is about making internal and external changes. Most coaching relations cover a three month time commitment as it takes time to set goals, build confidence, begin to make changes in attitudes and behaviors and ultimately to create balance in one’s life.

Coaching can take place face-to-face, over the phone, via email or any combination of the above. The coaching relationship usually begins with a face-to-face meeting. Homework is often given out in advance to help you make the most out of your time with your coach. Sessions are scheduled and clear goals set for periods between sessions. The amount of work attempted depends on the desire and determination of the client to achieve their life goals.

Coaching Fees
Success Associates coaches are trained in Career Counseling, Coaching and are Licensed Therapists. They have a depth of knowledge and years of experience that will enable you to make life-transforming changes quickly and successfully rather than to spend years just talking about change. If you believe coaching can be of assistance to you please call us for our current fee schedule.

Coaching Check List
Answer the following questions to determine if coaching could be of benefit to you. After completing the check list assess whether coaching could help you succeed.

1. Are you taking excellent care of yourself – exercising, eating well, resting?
2. Are you clear about your life priorities? Do you have a written goal action plan that reflects these priorities?
3. Is you work/life relationship out of balance and are you at risk of either burnout or becoming a workaholic?
4. Do you have an established system of supports that help you reach your goals or do you “go it alone”?
5. Are you winning or losing: financially, emotionally, and physically?
6. Do you need help getting out of debt or earning an income equal to what you can contribute?
7. Are your lacking quality relationships: no satisfactory love relationship, exploitative friends, strained relationships with your partner or children?
8. Are you failing to progress at work: not being promoted or given raises? Do you have strained relationship with your boss and co-workers?
9. Do you have people, groups and organizations that drain you of energy?
10. Are you living a life consistent with your values, dreams and aspirations?