How to show up for coaching

Coaching is not a done-for-you service. Really, when a client enrolls into coaching with me, I’ll ask them this question:

“How are you going to be showing up for this coaching contract?”

A graphic designer may ask you lots of questions and turn your answers into a tailor-made brand guide for you. Coaching is different in that only a coach can invoke the sort of insight from a question that only YOU can put to use and create newness and transformation with. For your life. For your business. Tailor-made.

Over the years, I’ve worked with a number of coaches and have coached hundreds of individuals. Following are three things I’ve found you want to look out for within yourself when hiring or working with a coach. If you follow them, I promise, your emotional, social, romantic, financial, and overall happiness return on your investment with your coach will skyrocket.

1 – Do you want it, whatever “it” is?

Nobody can want your transformation more than you do.

Nobody can want your dream more than you do.

Nobody can want to reach your goal for you, more than you do.

Oftentimes, a coach will spend significant time helping you understand why your dream is so important to you and connecting your actions to your why. Ultimately, however, only you can determine if you want what you want strongly enough, and why.

If you don’t want it hard enough and enroll a coach anyway, your money serves not your transformation and growth, but your procrastination and (un?)intentional mental outsourcing (“Once I hire a coach, I will be successful”) …

UNLESS….you commit to #2:

2 – Are you being open to a new, potentially challenging, or tough perspective that is intended to serve your growth and transformation?

If I go a month without a client cussing me out with their look (or words), I stop and wonder how I can show up more powerfully for my clients in the next month. I’ve had clients tell me: “I hate you right now, Dina” only to send me a note of appreciation the next day. One client once screamed in agony on my couch as they were opening themselves up to a huge revelation – one that would entirely change their relationships.

Coaching is not comfortable. A powerful coach will challenge your beliefs. A coach will offer a different perspective, call your bullshit, and offer observations of the patterns that are holding you back.

AND, that’s about all the coach can do for you:

Holding for possibility. Allowing a shift in perspective. Offering observations. Asking insightful questions.

If you’re truly wanting to grow, you’re required to then engage in the challenge, allow the message to land, and sit with the new information. Ultimately, you’re the only one who is able to implement your insights after the coaching session.

If you don’t, I can hold you to it. But I can’t lead a horse to water.

Which brings me to my third and final point:

3 – Are you willing to do the work?

Nobody can do it for you. Enrolling into coaching is a HUGE step – one where you’re opening yourself up to some deep work and to a host of tough questions that nobody else will dare to ask you. And, all of the work, all of the introspection will go nowhere unless you’re following through:

Are you actually having that conversation with your boss about a raise?

Will you truly commit to getting uncomfortable and taking daily action towards building your business?

Will you courageously follow through with the breakup?

Will you finally set boundaries with your mother?

I have an agreement with my clients: “We can neither deny fear nor use it as an excuse for inaction.” When you work with me, we’ll engage your fear in action so that the impossible becomes possible.

I go through these steps myself constantly. If I didn’t, I’d run the risk of attempting to outsource the source of my success. Applying these steps, especially 1 and 2, has recently led to a big shift in my life…one that has opened up nearly three days a week on my calendar.

Regularly, when I’m looking to fill my space with inspiration and fulfillment, I lead from this question: “What is it that makes me feel most alive, and how can I experience more of that?”

Serving YOU in a coaching conversation feels most lively to me. The act of slowing down. The intentional creation of transformation. And the deep listening that, inevitably, leads to growth. It’s a terribly exciting space to be in.

I’m giving that freed-up space to YOU. I’ve opened up time for 10 coaching conversations between October 11 and October 31. They are free and there is a guarantee-no-pitch. But the cost is high regardless:

The call is going to cost you 90 minutes of your time.

The call is going to likely cost you a limiting belief.

The call is likely going to cost you some comfort.

If you’re ready to give up time for transformation; beliefs for liveliness, and comfort for growth, I urge you to book yourself in for a call at this link. If online calendars aren’t your thing, email me with your timezone and I will find a time for you manually.

First come first serve. Once 10 calls are booked, the link goes offline. You’re up:
Do you want it?

Are you ready to get uncomfortable?

Will you take action?

Oh, and as you make the booking, remember this:

In order to accomplish your goal for the session, how are you required to show up?

Here is the link again: https://calendly.com/dinamarie/coachingcall?month=2023-10

With transformational loving,

Dina