Back to Blog

Get the Most out of Working With a Coach

How to get the most out of working with your coach.

Coaching is an incredible vehicle for personal and professional development and a significant investment of both time and money. The good news is the return on that investment can be life-changing. However, what you get out of coaching depends largely on the energy and intentionality you bring to the engagement.

Here’s how you can get the most out of it.

Cultivating “Player” and Growth Mindsets

The first thing to attend to is your mindset. In coaching, we often talk about developing a “player” as opposed to a “victim” mindset. The player mindset acknowledges that we are on the field of our own lives and we have the agency to impact the results. That’s not to minimize the reality that we can also be the victims of others’ behaviors–it’s just to acknowledge that we are often prone to over-externalizing the cause of our experiences.

If we consistently adopt a victim mindset that fails to acknowledge that we do have agency, we also remove our ability to be part of the solution. Another way of saying this is the consequence of innocence is impotence.

We also talk about the difference between a “fixed” and a “growth” mindset. When we adopt a fixed mindset, we tend to think of ourselves in binary terms–we’re either “crushing it” or failing. This forced binary can mean that, on the one hand, we maintain an uncritical (perhaps even delusional) self-view that we’ve got it all together, or, on the other, that we fall into a sense of self-contempt that tells us we’ll never be as good or successful as we wish to be. More often, we may oscillate between these two extremes depending on outward circumstances. Furthermore, if we adopt a mindset that assumes we are what we are and can’t change, we’ll expend a great deal of energy trying to change everyone else around us.

On the other hand, a growth mindset assumes that we are in fact dynamic, changeable beings. It is less prone to blindspots because it assumes that we always have room to grow. And it’s less prone to shame and self-contempt because it doesn’t presuppose our brokenness when we’re faced with our own imperfections. The growth mindset says, “I’m not broken. I’ve just got some strategies that have worked in the past but are insufficient going forward and need to be updated.”

Practical Tools for Reflection/Growth

As we mentioned in earlier segments, coaching is like spending lots of time observing yourself both “in the game” and on the practice field. Practice is an incredibly important concept here. When we practice, we develop habits and rhythms that support our growth and better performance.

The specific practices that support your coaching are the practices of self-reflection. Here are a few that can accelerate your growth as a leader and as a human being in general (during your time in coaching and for the rest of your life):

  • Journaling. Journaling is a powerful tool for self-inquiry. Writing, especially stream-of-consciousness free writing, allows parts of you to be voiced in an unedited way. It creates the opportunity to discover what deeper parts of yourself – parts that may be tuned out during normal day-to-day work activities – may feel or believe. As a mindfulness practice, journaling supports your slowing down and noticing what’s happening in your life. Journaling also gives you a way of tracking your learning over time, enabling you to discover the arc of your journey as you look back on what you’ve written. Finally, it supports you in claiming or “owning” your own learning and development process. Some clients choose to share journaling entries with their coaches, although this is not required. Other clients may find it easier to record audio messages or keep a running note on their phone–anything to encourage slowing down and reflecting on what’s happening in their lives.
  • Mindfulness Practice. Transformational growth begins with and flows from a mindful awareness of our own inner experience. To the extent we remain unconsciously caught up in the chaotic flow of thoughts and emotions that is the river of human experience, it will be impossible for us to clearly hear ourselves, come to know ourselves, and grow. Mindfulness meditation is the practice of noticing and naming (without judgment) thoughts and feelings as they enter our awareness–it’s essentially becoming aware of our awareness. This same practice opens up space for us to become aware of what is being communicated to us by another. If you’ve never tried mindfulness meditation, give it a try. Mindfulness gives us a way to quiet the loud and distracting inner dialogue contained in each of us. As that inner dialogue quiets, we can tune in to all sorts of stimuli that were always there but escaped our awareness.
  • Body work. Coaching can seem like a heady, thinking-centric process. But the reality is, we can’t access our innate, inner wisdom without being in rapport with our own bodies. We are not disembodied minds! Reboot coaches work with the body in mind. We may ask you from time to time, for instance, to tell us where a particular emotion “lives in your body.” We’ll ask you to pay attention to what your body is telling you. One way to support this important body-awareness aspect of growth is to find additional ways to engage in body work. At a minimum, finding an exercise routine that works for you can be incredibly helpful. We’re also big fans of things like massage, acupuncture, rolfing, and Qigong, to name a few. (Read more on the power of working somatically here.)

Preparing for Sessions

Lastly, we’d encourage you to think about how you manage your time before and after coaching sessions, creating the mental and physical space necessary for the learning and insights to stick. Many clients have found it beneficial to block off time before the coaching session to get centered and reflect on what they’d like to talk about with their coach, as well as after the session to reflect back on what was discussed. Even a 15-minute window before and after the coaching session can go a long way. For example, a walk around the block before you jump into your next meeting will give you the chance to breathe, reflect, and take note of your commitments to action going forward.

RELATED ARTICLES

Change From the Inside Out “It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.” –…
Practice Makes Progress: Getting the Most out of Coaching on the Path to Mastery Look to this day: For it is life, the very life of life. In its brief course Lie all the verities and realities of your existence. The bliss of growth,…
What Is Coaching? “The eye cannot see itself.” – Bill O’Brien What coaching is and isn’t, and what is right for you. Good coaching leverages a valuable outside perspective in order to help…

MORE WAYS TO STAY IN TOUCH WITH TEAM REBOOT

Podcast

The Reboot Podcast with Jerry Colonna, Team Reboot, and Startup Leaders

Check out the episodes

Social Media

Follow us on:
 

Medium

Follow our Medium publication for reflections on leadership and resiliency.

Subscribe to Medium