This excellent development opportunity! How will you optimize your time? How invested will you be in your development? This coaching program will help you create self-awareness, think critically, and gain new perspectives to achieve your goals. You’ll be supported, challenged, inspired, encouraged, and transformed to reach new levels. Here are seven ways to get ready and prepare for your coaching program.

Ways to get ready and prepare for your coaching program.

Identify your goals and focus areas

What specifically do you want to work on with your coach? What challenges are you facing right now? What do you want to walk away with after your coaching session? Would sharing your goals ahead of the session with your coach help frame your thoughts? Are your goals realistic and are you reasonable with yourself? Set goals that motivate you rather than overwhelm you and hence not achievable.

Be open and ready to get real

Your ability and willingness to get personal, be vulnerable, honest, and transparent will help your coach know how to best create and hold space for you to have meaningful conversations.
How will you create trust and connect with your coach early on? How do you prefer to learn? How do you want your coach to challenge your status quo? What do you want your coach to do when you are silent or extra talkative? Is it ok for your coach to interrupt you? Trust yourself and trust the process.

Be prepared to be challenged and expect change over time

Growth comes from stepping outside your comfort zone and eventually shedding behaviour patterns and habits of thinking that no longer serve you. Your coach will ask questions to challenge your thinking, assumptions, beliefs, attitudes, and feelings.
Permit yourself to share the good, the bad, and the ugly. Don’t be afraid of silent pauses. Give yourself time to think and ponder. You’re biggest “ah-ha’s” and lasting impact will come from your realizations. Be patient. Ups and downs are normal in coaching, the dips are where the growth points are.

Be prepared to take intentional action

You’ll be working with your coach to create a space for accountability and commitment You start with building awareness, and then put your insight into action, and finally discuss the results with your coach
A lot of the actions you’ll take will be between coaching sessions. How willing are you to experiment and practice? Do the work. As part of your development, you’ll cycle through action, reflection, learning, and experimenting over time
Get in the habit of recapping what you’ve learned via action steps. What are you going to do next? What will you do differently between now and the next session to make progress on your specific goal?

Track your progress, learning, and actions

You’ll tend to experience the most profound change between sessions as this is a by-product of self-reflection along with the tools and encouragement provided by your coach Use whatever tool you prefer to record your reflections. Keep a tracker, a journal or an Excel spreadsheet.
Noticing your progress, thoughts, gratitude’s, successes, actions, and other things that are most important to you is what matters most Review your notes before the session and share specific details with your coach so that they can further support your goals

Consistency matters

A regular cadence of meetings, typically two times a month or more, is required to build momentum leading to visible progress, experiential results, and transformation. Regular touchpoints with your coach drives sustainable behaviour change.

Be present during the coaching session

What do you need to do to ensure that you are focused and free from distraction during this time?
Turn off notifications on your phone, shut down your laptop, email and other communication channels.
You should be 100% committed to yourself and this development opportunity.