Personal Coach: How Do You Choose Which One?
Getting a personal coach can be the single most important
decision in a person's life. For many, it's like having a second
chance at growing up -- except they get to choose their teachers
this time.
But how do you make such a choice? How do you know who will best
serve you as a personal coach? Accreditation? Degrees? Gender?
Age? Location?
My suggestion is this: Perspective. Let me give you an example
about perspective from the world of psychology.
Somewhere during my undergrad Psychology training, I became
acutely aware that my Cognitive Psychology professor thought
such and such was due to X, while my Neuro-Psychology professor
thought the same such and such was due to Y. Each had good
reasons for what they thought. But they both couldn't be right.
Could they?
I asked my Cognitive Psych prof about the discrepancies I was
noticing from prof to prof, wondering what to think about it as
a student of Psychology. He boiled it all down to perspective by
saying:
1. Psychologists, like all people, try to make sense of life.
2. Different psychological perspectives make sense of life in
different ways (e.g., Cognitive Psych is thought-based,
Behavioral Psych is conditioning-based, Social Psych is
relationally-based, etc.).
3. When psychology students decide how they'll make sense of
life, they look at all the different psychological perspectives
available, and then pick whichever one seems to make the most
sense to them.
If points #1 and #2 seem solid and practical to you, while point
#3 seems kind of weak and impractical (if not downright flimsy),
then you're not alone. That's exactly how I felt when I first
heard it. You just pick whichever perspective seems to make the
most sense? Is that really how you make sense of the world?
But as time passed, and as I took more courses from more profs
across different psychological perspectives, I realized my
Cognitive Psychology prof was right. Each perspective has its
own way of making sense of life. And not only that, I also
realized that this "perspective thing" didn't just apply to
psychology.
I started realizing that people were approaching every aspect of
life from different perspectives. Yes, I already understood that
not everybody thought the same thing, but perspective goes
deeper than that.
Each perspective on life (or subset of life, such as politics,
religion, sex, marriage, etc.) acts as a model for making sense
of life. Each perspective comes with its terminology, its rules,
its methods, its advocates, its bumper stickers.
And when we, as students of life, decide how we'll make sense of
life, we look at all the different perspectives available, and
then pick whichever one seems to make the most sense to us.
Or at least that's how it would work best. Which brings us back
to getting a personal coach. When we find our perspective on
life, or on a subset of life, no longer seems to make the most
sense to us, that's the time a personal coach can be of great
benefit.
The personal coach can stand outside your perspective in order
to help you make the transition to a new perspective. That much
is clear. But the question we began with was how do you choose
which personal coach to go with.
And my suggestion, again, is perspective. Do all you can to find
out the perspective of the coach in question. As mentioned,
we're all making sense of life through different perspectives.
No two coaches have the same perspective. No two counselors have
the same perspective. No two therapists have the same
perspective.
Some coaches might tell you it doesn't matter what their
perspective is, that they'll simply help you get where you want
to go. They may help you get where you want to go, but their
perspective will determine the way they go about doing that.
Some coaches might tell you they don't have a perspective,
meaning they don't adhere to any formally recognized school of
training, thought or belief. They may not have a formal
perspective, but they have a perspective. And you can find out
what it is by asking them about their personal background, their
heroes, their values, pretty much anything.
Again, perspective colors all other aspects of life, so look at
everything you can see about a coach, then ask yourself what it
tells you about their perspective.
Remember, coaches try to make sense of life. Each coach makes
sense of life through a different perspective. Your job is to
look at all the different perspectives represented by the
coaches available to you, and then pick whichever one seems to
make the most sense to you.
Once you've found a coach with a perspective that makes sense to
you, you can expect to see yourself taking on that same
perspective, or your personal version of it anyway. And since
your personal perspective will shape your life, taking the time
to investigate your personal coach's perspective first is well
worth the effort.
Copyright (c) Grant Pasay 2005. All rights reserved. You may
forward this article in its entirety to anyone you wish.