Boost your education with business coaching

Ever meet someone who doesn't want to learn anything new? They get predictable results. Business coaches understand that you're never finished learning, and there are always opportunities for growth. There are several important ways business, career or life coaching can help you continue your education. In this article we'll look at what coaching is and how it helps you build your skill set, become a more valuable employee, increase your productivity and worth to your employer and continually strengthen your skills even in an established job.

A practical definition of coaching is a partnership you establish with a professional coach who helps you achieve what you want in life. A coach assumes that you have the answers inside you and that you can make your own decisions and take responsibility for your actions. Coaches don't tell you what to do; they help you find your own solutions. Business, career and life coaching helps you shift how your view yourself, your career and your business. It's designed to help you create long-term, lasting change and measurable results. A coach helps you stay on track and builds in accountability by asking you to follow through on your plan for success.

Coaching, whether it focuses on your business, career or your life, is a vital tool to help you build job skills. Let's say that you are a seasoned employee who has been with a company for 15 years and are looking for ways to move ahead. You're at a point in your career where you would like to move up the ladder but can't seem to figure out how to do it. In this scenario, a coach works with you to assess your strengths and areas where you could improve your skills. Coaches are trained to ask powerful questions to help you take an objective look at your situation. What are your strongest skills? What skills would be beneficial to acquire? What will you need to do to acquire these skills? What skills does your employer value most? A coach helps you clarify what areas you would like to focus on and what you will need to do to build your job skills.

If you think about it, you have the ability to become as valuable as you want in any company. For example: You're in human resources but feel like you're completely overlooked and unappreciated. You work hard and give your job everything you've got but you're still apprehensive that you could be laid off, transferred or demoted. A coach helps you objectively evaluate your situation with targeted questions that require careful thought. What are the skills that the employer most wants you to have? What knowledge will they pay you more money to possess? What would make you more valuable to your employer? In what ways can you use your talents to make yourself indispensable? Coaching is an important tool if you want to increase your value to an employer because it helps you focus on what will tangibly impact your career. Each company has a different definition of value and a coach helps you determine what that definition is and how to take action to create your own niche.

Successful people use coaches to increase their productivity and, by extension, their worth to the company. A coach helps you establish an accurate baseline for your current productivity and identify the areas you need to be looking at. An example that often comes up is someone who works a lot but gets very little done. An experienced coach helps you identify what is blocking you from completing your work. Business people often comment that they can't believe they were doing things a certain way for so long when the solution to higher productivity was right there in front of them the whole time. A coach helps you increase your productivity by identifying the things that are holding you back and what you can do to increase your efficiency. You'll be able to focus more effectively by answering key questions. What is my productivity goal? What areas do I need to improve? What steps need to be in place to improve a given process? What are the factors that slow down productivity? What elements need to be in my plan to improve my productivity? You get to decide what direction you move in and a coach gives you an unbiased, outside perspective to help you take action.

So why even bother continuing to build your skills? People often get in this mode when they are in a comfortable, secure job. The answer depends on what kind of life you want to live. Coaches work with people who are highly motivated to solve challenges and create greater success in their lives. We help you get from point A to point B easier by providing the extra support that you can't get from someone who isn't trained to help you clarify what you want and take action. In any job, and especially in a tough economy, it's important for people to stay on the cutting edge of what is happening in their industry or chosen field. People who prepare for the future are ready to move forward at any time and take advantage of the opportunities that arise. The value of coaching is that it puts you in the driver's seat of life and helps you function at a higher level.

A coach offers you a great opportunity to improve your skill set, be a more valuable employee, increase your productivity and continually work on being a more effective person. Coaching is a vital part of your continuing education because it encourages you to reach higher and discard the behaviors that don't work for you. It's different from other educational options because it specifically requires you to take a look at what you are doing and make the small and large decisions that can move your life in amazing directions.

Guy Farmer is a business coach and owner of The Relationship Guy LLC, a Sparks company that provides coaching, training and facilitation services. Contact him through www.myrelationshipguy.com/businesscoach.