Readiness for coaching begins with being in the right state

After a decade of delivering executive coaching, I still enjoy and love coaching. I am also more aware and sensitive to my state so if I'm feeling dreadful, feeling like that this is really something that I can't do, then that's when I wouldn't proceed. I realized early on how important it is as a coach to look after myself and provide my own self-care in order to maintain my right state for coaching.   

I realized this after I completed my coach training in 2008. I didn't feel like I was in a good space for a long time because I was moving to a different country and starting a new career. I wasn't ready to be the coach I wanted to be because I was not yet in that neutral state. Even if I had gone ahead without being in the right state, yes,  I can ask questions and I can apply those coaching skills, yet I knew the energy or the aura that I have is going to be negatively affecting the clients. With all of this in mind, I did not coach at all for 10 months until I felt in that neutral state where my heart and my head are balanced and in alignment. I think knowing what is my neutral state is part of being what I would consider professionalism as a coach, which includes looking after oneself to better deliver coaching to our clients. It's not a job that you can just go out when you're not okay and do coaching, to me that's not ethical.

Coaching requires this inner strength from which we draw upon as we walk alongside them to be ready to go on their journey, and that can be the most difficult part. Furthermore, my coaching practice has developed as I feel changes in myself as a coach. Whereas previously, I followed the typical coaching model: where you are now, write the goals, how do we get there. I realized that this is not the most challenging part. What's most challenging is, as I deepened my coaching approach, was about how to help my clients to want to take care of themselves. By genuinely connecting to my fantastic CEO or Executive and accepting that we're all human beings and here as equals, it’s okay for us to share and express all those things going on in our lives and emotions that naturally gets one frustrated in a safe and confidential space. And for me, it's about how can I go about bringing them to that moment of, "Yes, I want to walk forward, I want to do this or do that." It's about getting them to their state ready to want to take action.

This is why coaching is a journey. For the coach it’s about having:

• that amount of patience,

• that amount of belief in the person,

• that amount of understanding, and

• the empathy and the ability to relate, to be there with the client.

Otherwise, you won't be able to help the client to get there because you’re judging your client by your standards of why the client is not doing what he or she has said.

Being in the right state to help shift states

How I show up is just as important, or even more so, when I’m doing coaching itself. I show up by first of all knowing where I am – what is my state and how I'm doing in that moment - and simply just being aware of that. If that doesn't seem to be comfortable, let's say if I feel anxious or let's say I feel a lot on my heart and frustration before going into the room and being there in front of the client, then definitely I'm going to have to spend some time to get myself in a better condition. I need to do some self-care before I meet my clients. For example, I may do some breathing exercises or just take a walk in a park, and that’s helped me to get more into that neutral state and be ready for whatever state my client plans to show up for our session.

Right away we can sense the energy or where our client is as soon as they enter our session. Let me share an example. One of my clients is a senior executive, and immediately you can sense how busy it’s already been, and then they blurt out about how it’s making them feel, miserable. My responsibility as a coach is to help them shift states: from their initial state at the very beginning of the session and through our 50/60 minutes together to bring the client to a different state where they feel that they can help themselves to work on their goals. With another client, at the very beginning of the session he said, "I couldn't sleep the night before at all, I almost felt like canceling our session, rescheduling our session this morning but then I decided I will still call in." At the end of the session he said, "I feel the energy, the courage and I feel that I'm okay, that I can even though this challenge that's very challenging in front of me here, I feel that I can handle it."

The shift in the clients at the beginning of the session versus at the end of the session, that to me is the change in their state. Typically, what I'm able to do when I coach clients is, bringing them from one state to a different state, and hopefully, it's a better state.

Being in the right state to connect our senses, heart and head

A lot of the work I do in coaching is underpinned by helping my clients shift their states to be able to better deal with the problems facing them. The situation hasn’t changed but how they see the situation has. For me, the first thing I do is sense and observe what’s being share with me by my client. This might even be called intuition, that comes in first. Then there is a heart of connecting: connecting with the client. Then the next step is the brain, thinking and co-creating the strategies or the solutions. I use them all but I think more in a sequential manner. The sense, then the heart, then finally the head, there will be at the end of the session your actions or something that's concrete. This state-shifting underpins my work as a coach. And what’s enabled me to achieve this with my clients is having done the work on myself where my heart and head are aligned and gives me that neutral state, the right state, to be with my client.

To connect with Keiko Shinohara

Keiko is an executive coach trained with Results Coaching Systems, one of the largest global coaching organizations. She is also a Certified Behavioral Consultant trained in DISC, Enneagram, and Workplace Big Five.

Having studied and worked in Hong Kong, Japan, mainland China, Singapore, and Canada, Keiko is multicultural and multilingual, and delivers training and coaching in English, Japanese, Mandarin, and Cantonese. She has worked with a wide variety of clients including financial services, IT, consulting, engineering, HR, sales and marketing. She has supported her clients to achieve exceptional results in leadership effectiveness, interpersonal communication, staff engagement, and personal management.