What actually is coaching and how does it work (Oh and while you are at it, why nature too?)

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18 hours ago
6 min read

On my free discovery calls, I’ll always ask if people understanding what coaching is, what they expect and how they imagine it could work for them. I’ll share my own experience and explanation too.

In a sea of coaches, all specialising in lots of different things, with differing approaches modalities (their approaches and training) - actually knowing what coaching you'll benefit from or what to expect, can sometimes get a bit hazy.

Then I come along and add Nature into the mix too.

Its often the opportunity for people to be outdoors that is something that sparks an interest in my coaching approach, but they’ll be other things to about the way I express things on the website, my blogs or free resources that likely jump out to you.

One of my most simplified explanations of coaching is that it helps you define a) where you are/ the issue/situation b) where you want to be/what you want to change. Coaching helps you with the bits in the middle to so you can move towards or achieve your aim/intention change or lifestyle/career goal.

Coaching isn’t like talk therapy - though it can be very therapeutic- you will have conversations of course. These will be purposeful and focused on your goals or finding solutions.

A coach doesn’t tell you what to do, or give you guidance like a mentor. Though they will guide you through certain frameworks and activities to help you adapt and understand.

Coaches ask lots of questions, that help you find the important answers.

I help you find the right questions to ask yourself too.

As a holistic coach I focus on you as a whole person and help you think about your inner and outer world. Things like thoughts, feelings, beliefs, behaviours and experiences become relevant to shaping how we help you discover the changes or strategies you need.

We won't get stuck in the past, or too far ahead into the future. But I recognise how all of this bigger picture forms the person you are now, and helps you to be the person you aspire to be too.

Its important to say that my style of coaching focuses on you valuing yourself and your uniqueness.

Whilst we may recognise changes in can be helpful. Many of the people I work with have grown up feeling not good enough or too much, masked parts of themselves or felt ashamed or critical of elements of themselves. Often this can lead to being unhappy or unwell where actually those parts of you are exactly what makes you unique.

In these situations coaching helps you to feel confidence and authentic with expressing yourself and your ways ensuring you have a healthy environment and support to do so.

Gaining clarity and confidence with how to shift, maintain and adapt through lives changes.

In Nature we might move around our session environment, the landscape may act to support our activities or approaches whether as a identifiable point for a subject activity or somewhere to draw metaphor and understanding from that helps you deepen your personal development.

Nature also supports you to restore your attention and focus, relaxes and energised you and can spark those creative and problem solving aspects of your brain. This helps with coaching exploration and might be a very different experience to being online or in a room indoors.

Many of the neuro-diverse and/or over-stressed clients I work with, also share how the natural setting can offer helpful stimulation and variety that also helps to focus and regulate more easily.

One of the biggest, over-looked values of coaching is your investment in time, energy and space for yourself. Coaches offer deep listening, and the session allows you that rest-bite from the busy everyday and those different versions of ourself you put on for others. To deeper your understanding of yourself and nurture growth.

Many of the people I work with say, just making an enquiry or committing the time to a session each month, has a huge impact on self-esteem, self care and the clarity and energy that supports feeling good about yourself and making decisions in alignment with your life goals.

From small tweaks to huge shifts - coaching can help you cultivate flow and confidence in your life and career experiences.

But what is the geeky neuroscience behind why coaching works effectively to create change?

There is lots of evidence and research that shines a light on coaching. Coaching facilitates personal change through several key brain mechanisms, demonstrated in the way it activates and helps the brain respond:

Neuroplasticity activation - Coaching conversations stimulate the brain's ability to form new neural pathways. When you engage in reflective dialogue and consider new perspectives, you literally rewire your brains processing, allowing entrenched thought patterns to be replaced with more helpful ones over-time and use of strategies.
Executive function enhancement - Coaching activates the prefrontal cortex, strengthening planning capabilities, self-regulation, and behaviours in alignment with goals. This improved executive functioning helps you move from reactive to proactive responses in many walks of life.
Stress regulation - Effective coaching reduces cortisol levels while increasing oxytocin and dopamine production. This neurochemical shift creates an super-duperl state for learning and change by reducing the threat response, helping your mind be open and curious to difference and enhancing reward-based motivation that encourages us to do things differently for ourselves, through recognition of benefits.
Mirror neuron engagement - The coaching relationship leverages mirror neurons, which activate when observing behaviors in others. Using examples, frameworks and even observing yourself as part of the process as if looking in on your world. This neurological mirroring helps internalise your new perspectives and approaches modelled during coaching conversations.
Attention direction - By guiding focus toward specific goals and possibilities, coaching helps regulate the brain's default mode network, shifting you from rumination about past failures to constructive planning for future possibilities and aims. This builds resilience in people supporting you to reframe time spent feeling anxious or negative and gaining strategies that guiding you towards actions and intentions that can feel purposeful and less stuck.

Coaching also focuses on a strengths based approach to solutions and this can help to sustain a range of behaviour changes for many people.

When might coaching not be the right ‘fix’?

Its really important you discover a coach that can be both in alignment with you and your aims as well as provide supportive challenge to help you reach your goals.

As a coach I am not here to be your friend , collude, judge or victimise you and I am confident with who and how I can help.

Coaching can be very impactful for a range of reasons and people, you have to feel ready for coaching and want to change. Even if you are not totally sure on the how of it all (coaching helps with that too)

Coaching may not always be an intervention or support system that stands alone either, in fact in life and career coaching our sessions often focus on the range of services and approaches that help you be at your best.

Discovery calls are a great way to discuss if coaching is a good fit. Choose 3-5 coaches to chat with, you'll know in your gut who is the best fit for you, and that's not often not the cheapest one!

I tend to share that if you feel you need to do a lot of talking and processing about a specific event or life circumstance, and the focus is more on understanding than creating change or shifts - talk therapies and counselling may be helpful.

If you have a significant adversity that you feel particularly triggered by when focusing on or are really struggling with significant mental health issues therapeutic interventions may be more appropriate. I work with plenty of people with mental health conditions and trauma - however these people have often adapted a range of support approaches already and are looking for coaching to make changes that support mental health longer term.

I'd also say if you don't have agency to make changes, this can sometimes limit results. But hopefully you find yourself in a situation where your free to guide yourself towards change. (even where it feels a little scary to do so)

I’d also say if you are looking for a coach to give you answers or tell you what to do, share their opinion or create you plans and actions. This isn't an approach I would align with coaching.

I’ll help you find motivation, clarity, set your own goals and decisions but I help you to find this within your life, not through a decision I would make on your behalf. So if you are looking for a more transactional approach, you won’t find that here.

Coaching in Nature the people I work with share how they’ve missed time in nature, not found time or felt safe to explore for themselves due to being busy. They really love that they can combine personal development and change with their own love of the outdoor world. Some of our sessions also include walking for 90 minutes and this can be great physical activities (something 3 miles/5 km will be covered in the session)

When thinking about exploring coaching. Consider the following questions to help you discover your first next step

What led me to explore coaching as an option?
What do I want to achieve from coaching sessions?
What’s important to me about a coaches approach?
What am I most apprehensive about in coaching, and what question could I explore with a coach to help gain clarity around this?
What needs to change?