Everything you need to know about coaching with Rachel Hill
What you can find on this page:
The coaching process
Career vs leadership coaching
Coaching approaches
How to prepare for coaching
The Coaching Process
Coaching is different to counselling - my role is to help you come unstuck. It’s a two-way relationship, focussing on building the techniques you need to improve elements of your work, career and life. Some sessions will challenge you, some will motivate you and others will be focused on learning.
During coaching sessions, I'll ask open-ended questions to help you gain insight, give you direction and teach you new skills. I am your guide and your cheerleader. I’ll keep you accountable and motivated, help you develop new approaches, new mindsets, and I’ll teach you the qualities you need to be a great leader (even if you’re not a top dog…yet). But ultimately, the work is up to you.
You have to keep up your side of the relationship. This means you have to be prepared to put the work in. It means preparing for and showing up to every session, spending time reflecting on what you’ve learnt and practising the skills you’re developing.
I’m based in Whangarei, New Zealand and all my coaching sessions are carried out online - this means we can have a conversation from anywhere in the world. When you book a session with me, I’ll send you a link to a Zoom and we’ll go from there. Read more on preparing for coaching below.
Career vs Leadership Coaching
I offer both Executive and Career Coaching. Whilst they both focus broadly on the world of work, they target very different symptoms and opportunities.
Leadership Coaching
Leadership coaching helps you improve your performance at work, increase your influence and become a better leader - even if you’re not leading a team. Choose this style of coaching if you're looking to take on more challenging roles or opportunities.
Career Coaching
If you’re unsure about the next step to take in your career, you feel trapped in your current role, or you’re struggling to find a job you love, it’s a good time to get a career coach.
At some point in our lives, we all experience a want for something different from our work. This may show up as a wanting to transition into a more holistic way of working that will help you achieve balance in life, something I like to call ‘a lifestyle career’. Career coaching can help you with this too.
Coaching Approaches
Coaching is a truly personal experience.
It’s a relationship that will enable you to move forward in your work and personal life in ways that are almost impossible to do alone. Every client comes to me with a personal story, individual wants, desires and thought patterns holding them back. That’s why I take a tailored and targeted approach to my work, choosing to apply different tools, techniques and methods developed in neurology and psychology in a way that meets the needs of my coachees.
Self-leadership through Axiogenics
We all have some good ways of thinking and some not-so-good ways of thinking. A ‘way of thinking’ is a perspective - the way we look at anything and everything.
If you knew which ways of your thinking are your best and which are not, would you want to make better use of your best? This is what Axiogenics can teach you.
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP)
NLP is a set of tools that are used in the coaching process. The tools identify unhelpful thought patterns that may be keeping you stuck, and helps you change them into more useful and constructive ways of thinking.
NLP has been developed based on positive psychology and the premise that individuals are not broken. That they, that you are working perfectly.
Preparing for, and getting the most out of, coaching
If you've got a session coming up, you can prepare for the session in a number of ways. Firstly, by ensuring you have a comfortable and quiet place to have coaching from and secondly by ensuring you’ve got everything set up for your online session.
Getting comfortable
Coaching is a personal experience. I recommend ensuring you coach from somewhere you feel comfortable speaking your mind, a quiet room with the door closed, resting on a sofa or comfortable chair, a place where you won’t be distracted by your phone, family or otherwise.
Setting yourself up for online coaching
Secondly, ensure you’re ready for an online meeting. I recommend all of my clients use a headset or a directional microphone when coaching, this helps to reduce feedback from the speakers and ensures we can hear each other clearly.
I use Zoom for our sessions. It’s a simple programme to log on with, similar to Teams, Webex and other online meeting platforms. I recommend using a laptop or desktop computer for coaching sessions as I often share documents or videos. Though I do not recommend using your phone or tablet, if you do opt to use either of these, download the Zoom app prior to our appointment.
When you book with me, you’ll receive a series of email reminders about your appointment. In these reminders, you’ll also receive a link to the Zoom event, this is how you can access the meeting.
Preparing for the session
The initial session focuses on setting your intention and goals for coaching. This is a deep exploration of what success means for you, identifying the key criteria that will help you know when you have achieved what you set out to achieve, and how you’re going to get there. There will be some exploration of barriers and gaps that you want to overcome or bridge. At the end of this session, we will agree on what the initial actions and activities will be to get you started on the pathway towards your goal.
Follow on sessions have a loose structure that includes: reviewing your agreed actions, successes and challenges. There will be an agreed focus for the session, we’ll identify your next steps and briefly reflect on what you have gained from the session.
To prepare for coaching, it’s a good idea to review your actions, reflect on your successes or your challenges and identify an area you’d like to focus on. This can be communicated via email or you can jot it down in some notes prior to the meeting.
During the session
It’s a good idea to have a notebook (electronic or hard copy) where you can take notes and write things down throughout the session. This will help you remember what you have committed to doing between sessions and to keep track of what you are learning and gaining from coaching.