Coaching FAQ
- What is coaching?
A coach helps the client deepen the learning and further the action.
In coaching, the coach guides the client in improving their performance and achieving their goals through targeted and interactive conversations. Coaching is about helping individuals clarify their goals, evaluate their current situation, and make choices that lead to change. It works as a partnership between coach and client, with the coach providing support to help the client achieve their goals in alignment with their values. Ultimately, coaching helps individuals realize their potential and enhance the quality of their life.
- Can I change through coaching?
Garrett has witnessed numerous clients undergo powerful transformations and chances are, their ambitions, goals, concerns, and challenges are similar to yours. Coaching has the potential to act as a catalyst, profoundly altering the course of your life and enabling you to surpass your expectations by transforming the quality of your life and the direction of your career in ways you never thought possible. So, the answer is yes, you can.
- What about confidentiality?
Garrett recognizes the importance of your trust and takes every measure to protect it. Garrett does not divulge the content of the coaching sessions without permission.
- How often would I meet with Garrett?
To maximize the potential for change, Garrett meets with clients on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. This frequency allows for ample time between sessions for reflection and application of new insights while simultaneously sustaining the momentum of the work. By meeting regularly, clients are more likely to achieve their desired outcomes.
- Where/how would I meet with Garrett?
Most coaching sessions are done via phone. Occasionally over Zoom.
- How long does the coaching process take?
The duration of coaching can vary depending on several factors such as the client’s goals, level of commitment, introspective capacity, circumstances, and completion of homework assignments. Garrett’s standard program comprises 10 sessions, and clients can continue working with him for one or two sessions based on their needs and goals. Some clients may find the program so impactful that they choose to repeat it.
- How is coaching different from psychotherapy?
Clients seek counseling or therapy when they are dissatisfied with their life and want relief from psychological and/or physical symptoms. The focus is on remedying the client’s problems and alleviating pain or discomfort rather than moving towards desired goals.
Coaching and psychotherapy differ in their focus and approach. Coaches concentrate on the future and believe that clients are healthy, while therapists focus on the past and utilize a framework based on pathology and illness. Coaching is time-limited, with specific behavioral outcomes, whereas therapy is open-ended, with the primary objective being understanding.
Despite their differences, coaching and psychotherapy share similarities. Both aim to make concrete changes in a client’s emotional state and life, identify and address self-limiting beliefs or behaviors, and facilitate personal growth, change, and emotional mastery.
- How is coaching different from training or teaching?
Training and teaching involve imparting skills and knowledge to the learner, where the trainer or teacher is considered the expert.
In coaching, the coach does not claim to be an expert and does not provide direct answers to the client. Instead, coaching involves asking questions to explore the client’s present situation and collaboratively design a future plan. Coaching promotes learning through the process, but the coach does not directly teach the client.
- How is coaching different from consulting or mentoring?
A mentor is an experienced individual who provides guidance to a less experienced person. In coaching, the coach does not necessarily need to be senior or have direct experience in the client’s industry. The client is expected to have knowledge of their business, not the coach.
Consultancy deals with the entire business system and their recommendations may impact individuals indirectly. On the other hand, coaching directly impacts individuals and is often a recommended approach within a consultant’s overall recommendations for a business, team, executive, or individual.
- Who hires a coach?
Coaching is for anyone and everyone. Organizations hire coaches to improve teamwork, coach executives, and assist managers. Individuals seek out coaches to drop their anchors and improve various aspects of their lives such as their relationships, overall happiness, and to achieve their personal goals. Coaching can help individuals release mental barriers and experience freedom.
- Can coaching create dependency?
The coach’s objective is not to make the client dependent on them, but to help the client become self-sufficient and accomplish their goals. Right from the beginning, the coach emphasizes that the client is accountable for, and the one responsible for, the coaching outcomes.
- What is Garrett’s approach to coaching?
Garrett’s coaching approach is based on the belief that the client is the expert in their life and is whole, resourceful, creative, and capable of change. The coaching process is designed to inspire new thinking and behavior, improve performance, create directional clarity, and achieve personal and professional goals, and enhance the quality of life. The approach is an emergent, iterative, and holistic process.
