Applied Coaching Research Journal Volume 1 | Page 46

APPLIED COACHING RESEARCH JOURNAL 2018, Vol. 1
Going beyond goals
Coaching Inside and Out helps people take a
step back, look at their situation from different
perspectives and realise they have choices. After
that we ask the same questions I’d ask you: “Where
do you want to start? What do you want to change?”
Coaches then explore three core areas in response to
the individual’s needs:

• Who are you? (Your strengths and values - good
coaching)
• What do you want to change? (Reaching your
targets - goal coaching)
• How are you holding yourself back? (Challenging
your assumptions - great coaching).
Stretching out – another string to your bow?
What if you went beyond improving a person’s
performance and experience of sport and physical
activity to help improve their experience of life and
effect on others more broadly? Your role perfectly
positions you to bring in mind coaching in a way
that challenges and supports people as and when
they are ready.
Sport and physical activity coaches can, and do,
reach out and use their skills and knowledge
everywhere that people are physically or socially
excluded; bringing all the physical and mental benefits
of playing and participating to both individuals and
society. Great coaches also improve by learning about,
and stretching, themselves along the way.
We only coach for a small period of time and some
might wonder “what difference could I possibly
make?”, but it can take just six seconds to ask a
great question that shatters someone’s illusions for
life. It’s best to have many tools in your bag though,
to avoid the pitfall Maslow spotted: “I suppose it is
tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to
treat everything as if it were a nail.”
So how can you pick up the tools of “great” and
“good” coaching, not just “goal” coaching? Goal
coaching may be the simplest form of mind coaching
that helps people get where they want to be, but
goals aren’t always the best place to start.
Goals were beyond our very first male client in
the community. He’d been released from prison,
had alcohol problems and felt he’d never had any
Clare Balding with the author in HM Prison Styal gym
46
If mind coaches can help top sportspeople smash
records, then how might you help those you work
with shatter their assumptions and achieve more
than they’ve even dreamt of? We all hold ourselves
back in different ways and we can create our own
prison walls by assuming we can’t do things, by
thinking we aren’t worthy of success or by hiding
who we really are.