{"id":14440,"date":"2024-11-12T14:54:25","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T14:54:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trustedcoachdirectory.com\/?p=14440"},"modified":"2024-11-14T08:58:02","modified_gmt":"2024-11-14T08:58:02","slug":"help-is-wanting-to-help-as-a-coach-helpful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trustedcoachdirectory.com\/help-is-wanting-to-help-as-a-coach-helpful\/","title":{"rendered":"Help! Is wanting to help as a coach helpful?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The APA include a list of example roles including psychiatry, teaching, nursing, and counselling, but not coaching.\u00a0 In addition, I often hear coaches on training courses start a coaching session by asking, \u201chow can I help you today?\u201d, and I hear supervisees claiming, \u201cI really want to help my coachee\u201d, and I notice that I also want to \u201chelp\u201d.\u00a0 After all, helping others makes us feel good about ourselves, and it can feel like we are doing something of value and worthwhile, thereby fuelling our own self-worth and stroking our own ego.\u00a0 In addition, the desire to help and being helpful can be of use because coaching is something that can \u201chelp people move forward to create change\u201d (Starr, 2021).<\/p>\n

BUT let us just pause for a moment and think about what the term \u201chelp\u201d means and signify.\u00a0 When we look at the definition of help it is about giving \u201cassistance or support\u201d or \u201cto provide something that is useful\u201d (Merriam-Webster dictionary).<\/p>\n

I have been thinking about help a great deal of late, mainly because I am learning to live with being \u201chelpless\u201d in terms of supporting my elderly mother who is a 4-hour drive away!\u00a0 And I am learning that I dislike being helpless, I so want to make things better and easier for her, rescue her and be the \u201csuper-daughter fixer\u201d! However, in doing all of this I would be taking away her power, resourcefulness, making-it better and fixing\/problem solving!\u00a0 And so, I am reflecting on what does\/could \u201chelp\u201d and \u201cwanting to help\u201d really mean for us as coaches and what might it infer in one\u2019s coaching practice?<\/p>\n

Of course, we can justify our desire to help as a strength and an asset to one\u2019s coaching, as it can mean that we are supporting, making things easier, facilitating growth and development etc.\u00a0 However, let us look at the flip side as it might also imply and infer that the individual, we are coaching needs \u201cfixing or making better\u201d in some way, or that as the helper we are more \u201csorted\u201d than they are, and finally of course \u201cbeing the helper\u201d gives us, the coach, power over the other person.\u00a0 Therefore, in sum, I am left mulling over the fact that our desire to be helpful is likely to be projecting something (unconsciously) into a coaching relationship that is not helpful at all! As this projection will tip the balance in the relationship away from one of equality and undermine the philosophy of \u201cunconditional positive regard\u201d, as it will be saying \u201cyou are not a whole resourceful human being who can think for yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

With that in mind let\u2019s stop wanting to help and perhaps think about supporting, facilitating, walking alongside, journeying, and partnering so that \u201cthe purpose of our interventions is to mobilise our coachees\u2019 level of excitement and energy towards development and growth\u201d (Leary-Joyce, 2014).\u00a0 Also, let\u2019s take some time to reflect and think about why we want to help so much, and identify what is our need that is being fulfilled by doing the helping.\u00a0 With that in mind I offer a few questions for reflection:<\/p>\n