Transformational Coaching: The How & Why
The field of personal and professional coaching has grown significantly in recent decades.
While coaching used to be the preserve of top executives and famous sportspeople, these days it’s not uncommon for people from all walks of life to have some kind of coaching support system.
From relationship coaches and health coaches, to creativity coaches and spiritual coaches – there is a vast and growing range of niches that can help people enjoy happier and more successful lives.
Within all these broad subjects, however, there are some foundational aspects of coaching that have come to inform how all these practitioners help and support their coaching clients.
For example, for those at the top of their game, the field of High-Performance Coaching is one popular approach.
Another type is the deep and transformative approach to coaching known as Transformational Coaching.
What Is Transformational Coaching?
As the name suggests, Transformational Coaching is an approach to supporting individuals that goes beyond mere goal-setting or self-improvement.
The core of Transformational Coaching is a system of practices that help people to uncover the deeper aspects of their challenges or goals. Whereas sport or business coaching may focus on results and outcomes, the role of Transformational Coaching is to go deeper than surface goals and external metrics.
An example of transformational coaching is helping an individual gain a new – and transformative – understanding of why they experience certain patterns of behaviour, or why they pursue certain goals in the first place.
This type of coaching is also sometimes referred to as Transformative Coaching, which goes some way to explain the kind of results clients can experience and expect from working in this coaching modality.
The results of Transformational Coaching can often literally be life-transforming, as they help the individual to see both themselves and the world around them in a whole new light.
The shifts and insights experienced during Transformational Coaching can alter the path and trajectory of a person’s career and personal life significantly.
The Benefits Of Transformational Coaching
Working at these deeper levels of transformation can deliver a number of powerful and positive benefits.
• Long-lasting transformation
Once a person has become aware of certain behavioural patterns or subconscious conditioning, these results are permanent. Although clients may require ongoing support to work through certain ingrained patterns and habits, becoming aware is not something that can be reversed, and so these transformative insights are long-lasting results.
• Deeper meaning and satisfaction
While there is certainly a role for goals-based coaching and the pursuit of external markers of success, it’s also true that often these surface goals don’t deliver the happiness that was expected. With Transformational Coaching, the work addresses deeper levels of purpose and satisfaction so that individuals pursue the goals that are truly meaningful to them.
• Understanding & Self-Awareness
After working with a Transformational Coach, individuals gain a more enlightened understanding of how they operate ‘on auto-pilot’, i.e. why they do the things they do. This new level of self-awareness and understanding can help people to spot such patterns in all aspects of their lives, from relationships to health and lifestyle issues.
Why Become A Transformational Coach?
It’s clear that a great many people would benefit from support from a Transformational Coach, and this is why it’s such a rapidly growing sector of the coaching industry.
Training to become this type of coach is a great way to help people enjoy a deeper understanding of their behaviour, with a view to creating more successful and meaningful lives. As such, becoming a Transformational Coach and be a highly rewarding vocation for those who feel called to help others transform their lives at this deeper level of purpose and satisfaction.
There are also many other benefits to entering this field. The training itself will help you develop a clearer sense of your own patterns, behaviours and psychological conditioning. This aspect alone can be highly transformative for the coach, even before they have served a single client.
It can also benefit your personal relationships, as you develop improved skills in understanding human behaviour and why people face the challenges they do.
These types of skills can also be a tremendous asset in any career area, whether in business management and leadership skills, or simply learning how to get on better with clients, co-workers and customers.
How To Become A Transformational Coach
If this fascinating and rewarding field of coaching appeals to you, the route to becoming a great Transformational Coach is to start with the right training and accreditation.
Fortunately, the effectiveness of this blossoming branch of coaching means that there are many excellent training providers who can help you develop your skills and establish a highly rewarding Transformational Coaching practice.