Reality Coach® Credential

What would you think of your physician. if their total foundation for medical practice was based on competencies, methods or proficiencies?  Sure they could be competent at taking blood pressure.  They could have a clear method for how they do a medical exam.  They could be proficient at asking the patient questions.  But without an established model behind these competencies, methods or proficiencies they have no basis for analysis / assessment / strategizing.

Many coaches today have their total foundation for their coaching practice based in competencies, methods or proficiencies.  If you wouldn't accept this approach from your doctor, why would you accept this from your coach?

Other coaches base their practice on their personal experience.  For example, a person who successfully started a small business might provide coaching specifically to others interested in starting their own small businesses.  While a this-worked-for-me-so-it-should-work-for-you method seems sound on the surface, without an established model it is as empty as a coaching practice based on competencies, methods or proficiencies.
Consider the physician analogy once more.  Can you imagine going to see a doctor where their only basis for treatment was a this-worked-for-me-so-it-should-work-for-you approach?  One doctor might tell you that meditation might cure your heart murmur (because it worked for them) and another might tell you to take daily baths in ice water (because it worked for them). 

Plus, in this scenario you would only go to doctors who had direct personal experience with whatever symptom or disease you had.  Can you imagine that?  Your podiatrist had to have had foot problems in order to be qualified.  Your dermatologist had to have had bad acne as a teenage in order to help you -- and if they didn't -- well, that means they don't know what they are doing?!

Of course, none of this is true for physicians because they have an established model on how the body works -- typically taught in courses like anatomy and physiology.

If you are thinking about getting a life coach, business coach, relationship coach or career coach ask them about their model for how people change.  Listen carefully.  Are you getting a string of competencies, methods, proficiencies or personal experiences?

Or can the coach articulate a model for human behavior and change based on an established theory and explain how their coaching methods are derived from the model.

Then ask yourself if you would accept a similar basis for practice from your physician.