Coaching. An effective way to adddess work-life pressures?

 BeyondBlue is an Australian organisation that addresses depression and mental health issues. One of the recent initiatives it has released is the NewAccess coaching service. This is a six week coaching service offered to people who wish to devise mechanisms and solutions to deal with particular work-life pressures or issues.

I enrolled into this program a few weeks ago and have one session left. I decided to take part because it's a free service - yes, I am that shallow! -  and I thought it would be interesting to access a coaching service. I have spent many years looking at mentoring and trying to tease out what the difference is between mentoring, coaching, preceptorship and counseling. I hoped that by receiving coaching I would be able to further tease out what is involved, and how it may be beneficial for professional development.

I decided to focus on how to better manage my work-life commitments. If the conversations I have with friends and colleagues are any thing to go by, this is a problems that many of us face. I'll talk a little more about what I learned in my next post.

I have found the program to be immensely beneficial. I talk to my coach by phone - we've never met in person. The 30 minutes or so that we've spent together have given me time out to think about the changes I can make to my life, and how to better manage my commitments. Whilst my coach has lent me a sympathetic ear, she has also given me strategies to try out in my life. None of it has been rocket science, or even stuff that I didn't already know.  But I have found it very useful to have someone to be accountable to, and have the coach layer out activities for me week by week which has helped me see the wood for the trees.

The only problem with NewAccess is that it has limited availability in Australia.

I would certainly recommend the program to people who have access; in Adelaide, Canberra and New South Wales.  I have enjoyed having a coach who I have found to be someone who not only listens to my issues but also offers me ideas about how to manage those issues effectively.

This experience has certainly opened my eyes to the benefits of coaching, and I am going to look at how I can continue to access coaching in the new year. The only snag to professional coaching services that I can see, is the expense.

Have you ever received coaching for work? How did you find it?


Image - Kim Paulin: https://www.flickr.com/photos/axlape/6875179639