What Is Coaching?

In sports, players rely on a coach to organize the team, motivate them, understand which members are the better players, and inspire them to perform to their best ability.

Today, the field of coaching has exploded. There are life coaches, business coaches, executive coaches, career coaches, financial coaches, personal coaches, health coaches, dating coaches, and, of course, writing coaches. And the list goes on. Despite the field, coaching facilitates psychological, emotional, or mental growth. In other words, you go to a coach to improve something: personal relationships, weight loss, financial status, business growth, how you write. 

Coaching helps you utilize your skills and talents and hone them, refine them, improve them so you can reach your goals. Think of Cinderella with her fairy godmother. After hours of directing mice and birds and other animals to stitch a new dress and gather vegetables (aka coaching), she waved her magic wand and Cinderella had a new gown, slippers, footmen, and a beautiful coach (the grand result).

Coaches use their own magic to inspire you with the task at hand. They do this through a combination of tools and techniques. For example, you can probably open a bank account on your own. But you might need a coach to plan your financial retirement goals. Or you may not have any trouble writing a short story. But expanding that short story into a book may feel so intimidating you don’t even try.

Coaches are experts in their particular fields. Imagine your favorite teacher combined with your favorite relative. You want someone who will stretch your boundaries and push you to do your best. Someone who’s supportive and encouraging, who knows how to praise you for a job well done and make you believe in yourself when you feel like a failure.

Don’t settle for just an okay coach. Visualize this person in living Technicolor. What is her personality? Is she soft-spoken or authoritative? Does she sit on the sidelines or is she right there with you, helping you over the rough spots? When you know what you want you’ll be able to attract that kind of person to you. One who not only matches your writing needs, but someone who’s also a match for your heart.

How does it work?

Coaching teaches you the tools to tackle the problem. If you have trouble with noun-verb agreement, understand the basics with exercises. If your descriptions crawl instead of gallop, explore words that give your story energy and enthusiasm. If your characters are too weak, use a GMC chart (goal, motivation, and conflict) to create more tension.

When I first started taking writing classes, I was overwhelmed with the sheer amount of work. Go through my entire manuscript and look for scenes that don’t work? You’ve got to be kidding. Search for all the times I used the word “smile” and rewrite or rephrase those sentences to avoid repetition? I think I’ll pass.

I rarely did the work in my early classes, preferring to skim over the parts I felt were unnecessary. And my writing showed it. When I finally learned that work = lessons learned, my writing improved. Dramatically.

As with any skill, the key is practice. Even professional writers take classes and improve over time. Writing is about sharing yourself—the deep inner you—with the world. When you use those skills to write from the heart, you inspire others.

Words are my passion and I love helping people excel. Like the fairy godmother that delighted in assisting Cinderella, it’s extremely rewarding for me to see the joy on my clients’ faces when they hold their finished books.

Visit www.wordsofpassion.com and schedule a complimentary consultation to find out how my coaching services can help you.