Coaching: a mainstream phenomenon.
Ten years ago coaching wasn´t attracting much attention and it was certainly not something people openly talked about.
Ten years after coaching has become a mainstream phenomenon attracting positive and negative attention, as it always happens with anything new.
The need for a professional coach
As Financial Times pointed out, back in 2013, more and more companies actively encourage and pay for, their managers to spend regular time with a professional coach. And this is a rising trend. In a world that undergoes an incredible transformation at a global level, the demand for coaching grows fast. Executive and life coaching have never been more important than today. PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the world’s most respected analysis companies, estimated in 2016, that life coaching is a $2.4 billion per year industry.
Stress in both the workplace and personal life is on the rise. Speed, complexity, and uncertainty are everyday challenges for everyone, independently of their educational or social status. Business leaders coping with rapidly changing environments while trying to manage interpersonal relationships, people struggling on their relationships in a world where self-knowledge, optimal decisions and a sense of purpose is continuously challenged are some of the main cases in need of coaching.
What a coach can offer you?
A coach is the one who will offer immediate focus, motivation, support and help the client improve specific skills and behaviors, that have usually never trained, worked or been aware before. A coach will work closely to provide greater clarity in roles, objectives, priorities, and difficulties. A coach will work with people to make their dreams come true, define what their attitude towards the challenges they face every day is and help them re-define what balance means for them. The majority of the skills a person needs to overcome and balance those challenges have never been taught in any University degree worldwide, so far.
How to choose a coach.
However, it has never been trickier to choose a coach. As it always happens when an industry is on the rise and numbers are appealing, internet marketers and “gurus” immediately appear giving their opinions and thoughts to future, potential coaches on how to spend their savings and invest in a fancy website, or a sales funnel, or a product or anything else—when they should have instead invested in getting trained, certified and accredited in a trusted methodology.
The first thing you need to ask before choosing your coach is: Are you accredited and by whom?
Accreditation or certification?
The difference between certification and accreditation is often misunderstood.
Certification is the verification related to products, processes, systems or persons.
Accreditation is the verification related to the demonstration of competence to carry out specific tasks. Thus, accreditation is higher than certification. Accreditation matters. The International Authority for Professional Coaching and Mentoring explains all the answers to why accreditation matters.
For example, students receive a certificate on completion of their degree, but it is the University that has its courses accredited, which sometimes can be the differentiation reason whether a student will select one university over another. Accreditation from an International body of independent accreditations ensures the training, skills, and code of ethics that your coach follows.
The accreditation status should be a key differentiator in choosing who to hire. People need to be aware of and acknowledge accredited professionals. That is because the real benefactor of good quality coaching is the client and always the client. The coaching profession should be protected by people who are not accredited to coach in the same way that the medical profession requires medical registration and accreditation for a physician to see a patient.
The way to a wellness economy.
The Global Wellness Institute defines today’s coaching as one of the key future drivers of a wellness economy. I believe that coaching deserves professionalism. And, final user, YOU, have the power to demand such professionalism.
If you feel your beliefs don’t empower you anymore, change them.
If you feel stuck or in a need for a change, take the first step.
If you feel about to make a change and improve your life, body or health, start today.
You can do it.
You just need to choose your coach. And ask them for accreditation status.
Feel free to contact me. I would be glad to help you.
