He stepped up to the plate with confidence. He was facing a good pitcher, someone who could throw the ball hard, fast and accurate. The batter knew that he would have to stay alert and focused. His goal was to hit the ball. He felt comfortable in his stance and his arms were positioned for success. He and his coach had worked on his swing and he practiced on his own, until it became automatic.
The timing of his swing would also depend on what the pitcher threw. In the past, he had trouble with a certain pitch and as the ball came out of the pitcher’s hand, he knew. It was a curve. This time, he was prepared. With the help of his coach, he had worked on perfecting his skill, giving him self-assurance and poise at the plate. He swung with conviction, hitting the ball and making it to first base. The first step was done and he knew what he had to do to get to second. 
The concept of coaching began in sports. The coach gets to know the athlete and guides the athlete to get to know him or herself, helping them to discover their strengths and talents to succeed.
What happens when life throws us a curve or we experience an unexpected turn of events? Who is there to guide us?
My vision for family coaching came from my personal experience. Parenting a child who had multiple disabilities was an extraordinary feat. I was fortunate to have a good support network as well as my own innate ability to cope. I became a listening ear and mentor for families who shared a similar experience. I worked with professionals to help them understand a parent’s perspective. I was a team member for many projects, I wrote papers and did many presentations. I was both an advocate and a consultant.
One day, I was reading an article on the benefits of life coaching and suddenly, the light bulb was turned on. Family coaching would benefit many people.
Coaching is a relatively new service and many people don’t fully understand what it is and what it involves. People often view coaching as “life coaching” and associate it with something that is “airy fairy” and “silly” or ineffective. In reality, coaching is the process of giving people the tools, knowledge and opportunities they need to succeed. Coaching promotes creativity, breakthrough performance and resilience, both at work and home.
Family coaching can help you fine tune a skill, learn something new, solve a problem, develop a strategic plan or work through a difficult time. It provides families with the tools and techniques to resolve conflicts, reach compromises and transform a difficult situation into a comfortable one.
Families are like a team. Each individual member brings a skill, personality and role to the family team. Teamwork is important for families, just as it is for co-workers. Family members who can work together and balance each other’s strengths and weaknesses bringing everyone closer together.
Family can be the people we work with too. If you’re part of a team or group, the members can be described as your family. This is becoming an increasingly useful way for organizations and businesses to build high-performance teams and a workplace cultures that celebrates opportunities, transparency and diversity.
Many full-time employees spend more of their hours each day with co-workers than they do with their spouses and families. As such, it’s important to have a great relationship with those people. Plus, close work relationships boost employee satisfaction.
In the workplace, a coach helps the employer and employees collaborate to identity, target and plan for improvements, work through difficult situations and see new solutions to old problems. The coach helps facilitate these discussions and provides opportunities for improvement by asking proving, and often tough questions.
Coaching is not a training session but rather a method to reinforce what an employee learns in training courses. While training is an “event”, coaching is a process, which is a valuable next step to training to ensure that the new knowledge communicated and there is follow through and action.
Personal loss, illness or drastic change, is hard to deal with in general, but it can become especially awkward when it comes to our workplaces and dealing with grief. When we experience a traumatic change, it moves beyond the personal and deeply affects other parts of our lives too. Knowing what to say to co-workers and supervisors, and having them know what to say to you, is an important step to dealing with this at work. Family coaching provides a process of self-reflection and knowledge about your emotional intelligence to help you work through sensitive situations.
Coaching is not therapy or counseling, although coaching uses some of the same communication processes. Coaching is about creativity, performance and action, while therapy deals with resolution and healing of the past.
Family Coaching is progressive and true coaching improves your resiliency and effectiveness in change. Coaching uses all of one’s knowledge and experience to enable the person being coached to create and develop their own best practices, connections and resources. Coaching leverages individual strengths and abilities for maximum performance. Coaching also supports diversity by recognizing everyone’s uniqueness and individuality.
Organizations and businesses may not recognize that coaching can improve performance, quality and the bottom line.
Coaching is a relatively new service and many people don’t fully understand what it is and what it involves. People often view coaching as “life coaching” and associate it with something that is “airy fairy” and “silly” or ineffective. In reality, coaching is the process of giving people the tools, knowledge and opportunities they need to succeed. Coaching promotes creativity, breakthrough performance and resilience, both at work and home.
I welcome the opportunity to speak with you and explore how family coaching can help you. Please contact me and let’s start talking today.
What matters to your family, matters to me!
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