Practical Coaching
Network

Before we talk

Two questions, before your first call

  • Takes five minutes or less.
  • Shows your results at the bottom on a grid.
  • Bring your answers to your 15-minute free coach call for best results.

Question one

Where are you, in the area you want coaching?

Not your whole life — just the part you would bring to a coach. Work, money, a calling, a decision, a habit. One area.

Below zero Something is hurting and needs healing. Counselling is the right tool here.
Above zero You are functioning. There is more you could become. Coaching works here.
0

Move the slider to where you think you are.

−100+10
How the two are different
CounsellingCoaching
Direction−10 to 00 to +10
LooksBackward, at what happenedForward, at what you want
Starts fromSomething is woundedNothing is broken; something is unrealised
First question“What happened to you?”“What do you want?”
Who has the answersThe counsellor brings clinical trainingYou already have them; the coach asks
Finished whenYou are wellYou have arrived — then you pick a new +10

The line is cleaner on paper than in a room. Some counselling looks forward; some coaching touches the past. If you are unsure which side of zero you are on, say so on the call — that is what it is for.

Question two

What do you want your coach to actually do?

Coaching, strictly speaking, is asking good questions and drawing out what is already in you. Done well it produces more learning than being told ever does — when you broadly know what you need, and what is missing is accountability, processing and encouragement.

It looks different if what you want is teaching or consulting. Neither is worse. But a coach who thinks you want questions, meeting a client who wanted answers, ends up disappointing somebody — which is what this question is here to prevent.

What you want from a coach

Most people are somewhere in the middle, and it changes with the topic. Pick where you are for this one.