The Top Ten Core Coaching Principles To Win The Mental Game Of Coaching.    What are the core principles of great coaching? How does a highly effective coach operate with a client? How does a coach help a client get the most out of themselves? These answers depend on the coach, the client and many other factors. This article gives you Bill Cole's top ten core features that all good coaches have in common.    366 words.

The Top Ten Core Coaching Principles
To Win The Mental Game Of Coaching

Bill Cole, MS, MA
Founder and CEO
Procoach Systems
Silicon Valley, California

"Life is a succession of lessons, which must be lived to be understood."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique."
--Benjamin Jowett

What are the core principles of great coaching? What does good coaching look like? How does a highly effective coach operate with a client? How does a coach help a client get the most out of themselves?

These answers depend on the coach, the client, the venue, the coaching situation and other factors, but as a starting point, let's take a look at the core features that all good coaches have in common.

The Top Ten Ways Excellent Coaches Work

Here is what you can do as a coach to facilitate excellent progress in your clients.

1. Create a safe place for clients to be and to explore themselves.

2. Listen, probe, intuit, have dialogue, search for truth and meaning.

3. Increase the awareness of your clients and their situation.

4. Uncover client goals, desires and hopes, with time lines.

5. Explore possibilities and avenues to these potentialities.

6. Create systems and processes to translate client desires into regular actions for success.

7. Be a model of how your coaching displays your life philosophies and ways in the world.

8. Be unconditionally accepting and supportive of clients.

9. Align client values with their goals and their style in the world.

10. Be a broad, deep, potent resource for clients in every way.

Coaching is about a relationship, not about techniques. Coaching is about trust, integrity and honesty, not about glib directives. Coaching is about the client's needs and wants, not about forwarding the coach's agenda. Coaching is about creative exploration of possibilities, not structuring predetermined systems and pathways. Coaching is about nuanced, detailed communication, not blanket, quick homilies and tips. Coaching is about creating a big vision, not just about fixing problems. Coaching is about evolution and expansion, not just day to day living.

Coaching is about all this and more.

"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being."
--Goethe


To learn more about how coach training can help you become a better change agent, visit Bill Cole, MS, MA, the Mental Game Coach™ at www.mentalgamecoach.com/Programs/CoachingSuccess.html.

Copyright © 2005 Bill Cole, MS, MA. All rights reserved.

Bill Cole, MS, MA, a leading authority on peak performance, mental toughness and coaching, is founder and CEO of Procoach Systems, a consulting firm that helps organizations and professionals achieve more success in business, life and sports. He is also the Founder and President of the International Mental Game Coaching Association (www.mentalgamecoaching.com), an organization dedicated to advancing the research, development, professionalism and growth of mental game coaching worldwide. He is a multiple Hall-Of-Fame honoree as an athlete, coach and school alumnus, an award-winning scholar-athlete, published book author and articles author, and has coached at the highest levels of major-league pro sports, big-time college athletics and corporate America. For a free, extensive article archive, or for questions and comments visit him at www.MentalGameCoach.com. You can call Procoach Systems toll free at 888-445-0291.

Free Re-Publishing Rights For This Article

You have our advance permission to republish this article, as long as you do not sell it. The author's name, web address (MentalGameCoach.com) and copyright notice (Copyright © Bill Cole, MS, MA) must appear in all reprinted articles. If the article appears on a website or in an e-zine, the article must include a link to a page in the MentalGameCoach website. We would also appreciate your including the author's bio and full contact information in your article, although this is not a requirement. For additional information, see our full article re-publishing permission guidelines.