In a TED Talk, Bill Gates once made the case for everyone needing a coach. If you’re a business owner, coaching can be an enormous help to you. Here are 5 benefits of coaching that can help business owners to succeed with their triple bottom line.
1. Gain Clarity
I love a good metaphor. One I heard a long time ago, but which resonated deeply, was the idea that when you die, your in-tray will still be full. In other words, there will ALWAYS be something else to do.
This needn’t be a problem. A sense of momentum, of moving forward, is essential in life. Human beings need to be doing something and when they aren’t, because they are stuck in a rut, for example, the result can be feelings of deep frustration, lack of direction and of becoming detached from a sense of real purpose.
Coaching can help you see the wood for the trees. It is an excellent way to discover that success in your purposeful business doesn’t have to be the result of doing more, more and still more. Rather, it is about gaining clarity on your purpose and on your way forward.
Coaching enables you to set the meaningful goals that will propel you towards the outcomes you are seeking.
2. Build Confidence
What exactly is confidence, and how can you build it? The word itself comes from the Latin root, fidere, meaning trust. So really, it is about being able to trust in yourself or, these days, to believe in yourself. When the pressure’s on, it is that self-belief that can sometimes desert you. On a bad day, it’s easy to freeze, like a rabbit in headlights, and to lack the confidence to take the most effective decisions.
And the idea that you can lack confidence is obvious, isn’t it?
Well, no, not really. The notion that you somehow have to find confidence to feel confident is, to be frank, a bit of a myth.
The thing is, we’re all born confident. A baby just ‘is’. She doesn’t have the capacity to wonder what this or that person thinks of her, much less to fret about whether she’s doing something right, or not. That sense of anxiety that you sometimes experience as a lack of confidence, is actually a learned behaviour. It’s very real, of course, but also something that can be addressed through coaching.
Coaching can help you to reconnect with the confident you, the person you were born to be before some of those unhelpful thoughts, feelings and behaviours began to take root. The fact is you already have confidence and you certainly don’t lack anything.
Coaching encourages you to look inwards to discover what is really stopping you from making the progress you want to make. Hint: It’s NOT a lack of confidence.
3. Save Time and Energy
So, where does all your energy go? Why do you feel constantly drained?
We all have a finite amount of energy at our disposal, and it’s up to us how we use it. However, each and every one of us has developed a range of energy sapping behaviours, which at one time made perfect sense, but which now don’t serve us well.
In business, if you take your eye off the ball, you could miss out on some really exciting opportunities. So, it’s key to understand how you are going to ‘spend’ that precious energy, so that you are alert to everything going on around you, and so that you still have some left over to use in non-work-related areas of your life.
Coaching will help you understand the dynamics of situations where you are likely to drain your energy reserves and will enable you to explore alternative behaviours that will ensure you are channelling the most effective, energetic version of you.
Not only will you benefit as a result, but so will your business (oh, and your family too).
4. Discover your Strengths
All of us have things that we are good at, and it makes sense to do more of these to help ensure we are operating at our optimum level.
However, it is also true that every individual has a huge reservoir of untapped potential lying latent within them. A more straightforward way of putting it, is that you are more capable of achieving the business success you are looking for, than you ever believed possible.
That’s all well and good: do more of the things you’re good at and realise that you’ve got loads of strengths that you’re not yet aware of. But what then? Once you’ve come to that realisation, I mean? Surely, it can be a little frustrating to know you’ve got it in you but can’t get it out.
I hate to repeat myself, but that’s where coaching comes in. Through the coaching process, you can come to appreciate your strengths, rather than to dismiss them as if they were of little value. Crucially, you can also learn how to expand the use of those hidden strengths and how to harness them to ensure business success.
Your staff and customers won’t know what’s hit them.
5. Make a difference
If you’re anything like us, you didn’t go into business ‘just’ to turn a profit. You also wanted to make a difference for the planet, and for the people you connect with and employ. As a teacher, I was seduced by the idea that you never really knew where your influence would end. My pearls of wisdom, delivered to eager bright-eyed youngsters, would filter down through the generations creating a positive impact for many years to come.
And, so it is with your business. If you do the right thing today, you really can become the difference that makes the difference for future generations. Your business, and the way you conduct yourself in it, counts, make no mistake. You really can make a difference.
But the thing we’re always saying at Future Fixers is that ‘it all starts with you’. Often, people running businesses need help to stay on track, especially when sometimes, doing the right thing seems more difficult than taking unethical shortcuts. This was evident for me recently as I tried to find an ethical printer to help me publish my packs of coaching cards, as well as an ethical box maker to provide the receptacle to contain them. Oh, and an ethical designer to help me convert my Word document into something that looked good.
Sourcing ethically is all very time consuming, and it’s one reason we want to create a directory of ethical businesses. Without the staying power and the resilience to keep going, you can find yourself making poor decisions, decisions that go right against your values and which leave you feeling you have compromised what you stand for. Never a good feeling.
But guess what? Coaching can help with that too! Making a difference for yourself may mean making changes that can sometimes feel uncomfortable, but a programme of coaching can really support you through the transition period, so that you can step forward and make a positive difference.
Here at Future Fixers and DSB Training and Coaching, we can tailor coaching programmes to suit you.
Why not give us a call on 07837 023580, or email david@dsbtraining to discuss your individual needs. Find out more about how to enrol on Future Fixers Coaching Circle, a cost-effective way to receive individual coaching within a group setting
Last Friday of every month – only £15 per session.
