If you think you might need coaching, chances are you’re right. That’s because coaches very often come into play when a person is undergoing a transition—feeling stuck, facing a seemingly unsolvable problem, looking for a next step in life or career or just wanting a change.
The International Coaching Federation (ICF), one of the leading industry groups and certification programs for coaches, describes coaching as “a process that stirs up creativity, fuels personal growth and maximizes both professional and personal potential.” It’s like a “toolkit for your life.”
“Through powerful questioning and insightful dialogue, coaches support you in discovering your own solutions, whether for life decisions, career shifts or business challenges,” according to the ICF. “Coaching goes beyond surface-level improvements; it cultivates deep, lasting change.”
Why do people seek out coaches? The reasons vary but, often, a person might be “looking for someone to help—a thinking partner, someone to help them think through [options], and a place where they can come [that] is a completely confidential and safe space to just say whatever they want to say [about their] vision, their dreams,” says Jennifer Tokar, an ICF-certified coach and adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University who spent years as a chief learning officer for the federal government.
Unlike training, coaching is a one-on-one relationship—a partnership. “The coach is working at the individual level,” Tokar says. “You’re looking to really spark the insight in the individual, so you’re hoping to sort of foster thinking and awareness rather than giving knowledge”—even though coaches do that, too.
“The change,” she adds, “is more transformative because it’s coming from within the individual themselves. It’s like they’re finding their own answer.”
Getting Started
That doesn’t mean individuals who seek coaching always know exactly what they want or need. Helping people gain clarity on their goals is typically the start of the coaching process. But “you don’t want to force it,” Tokar says. If someone isn’t open to coaching, the process likely won’t be successful. Companies looking to prescribe coaching to employees, take note.
“You want it to be something where somebody willingly comes to the coaching wanting it,” she adds. “You need to be willing to look at yourself and be introspective and be willing to go there with some of these hard questions.”
“Sometimes clients don’t even know... exactly what’s under the surface until the coach starts working with them and asking some of these really insightful, powerful questions. And then, all of a sudden, there are these breakthroughs.”
Tokar sees coaching as a “powerful resource to help you gain this awareness about yourself.”
Coaching the Whole Person
One of the most prevalent models of coaching is known as the GROW model. In this framework, coaches help clients figure out and set specific goals (G), determine the contextual reality (R) around them, brainstorm what their options and opportunities (O) are, then establish a way (W) forward, or what next steps can be taken.
Coaches should be non-judgmental, confidential sounding boards who can help people not just take steps toward personal and professional goals but also help them stay accountable to making progress. This can come about through performance plans, for example, in ongoing coaching arrangements.
In coaching, the personal and the professional tend to be intertwined. Coaches must “coach the whole person,” Tokar says. “You don’t leave your personal life at the door when you come to work.”
She adds: “Sometimes the client’s goal is something very business-focused, but when you start getting to know them and start talking to them about their goals and their life, and you start coaching, then you find out that these other sometimes really huge life challenges are happening.”
People can’t give their all at work when they’re dealing with life challenges in the background, she says, so “sometimes it can be helpful... to the organization to help the person with the background stuff.”
Experiencing Transformation
Success, Tokar says, is “the client feeling like their needs are being met, that their goals are being accomplished.”
She talks about those “Aha! moments” when you “get the really big shifts because people are like, ‘Wow, I never thought of it that way,' or ‘I never saw myself like that.'”
“That’s what’s really powerful about [coaching],” she says. “It’s empowering for your client, but it’s also very empowering for the coach, which is why I think so many people love coaching.”
Image courtesy of Insta_Photos/Shutterstock
This article was first published in the March 2026 issue of SUCCESS Digital Edition. Get your free copy here.
