Why you need a coach?
(3 Min Read): Increase the odds of achieving your big ambitious goals.
In the last post, I made a case for why you need a mentor. In this post, we are going to focus on why you need a coach. Coaching is much harder to understand than mentoring, so we are going to dig a bit deeper.
Tl;dr: Coaches help us achieve our long-term goals (5+ years). They provide strategic and long-term guidance to keep us on track. This allows us to grow in the right direction and prevents us from getting sidetracked on our journey toward our goals.
Long Form:
Before reading further, try recalling a person who has provided you with long-term guidance. For many, it’s our parents, uncles/aunts, or even older siblings who we look up to.
The good news is that most of us have received some form of unofficial coaching when we were growing up.
The experience went something like this:
As a kid, someone would ask, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" And you said, engineer, YouTuber, doctor, professional skateboarder, lawyer, chef, or something else.
Then that person asked you about your whys, how you plan to do it, if you need help, what you have done, etc.
And when you looked blank, they shared resources, answered questions, and provided guidance on what to do next. Then every time you met them, they would checkin and ask, "How are you progressing towards your goal?" and provide direction.
If you had an experience like that, it is very similar to what coaching looks and feels like.
Now imagine if someone could do that for our life’s big ambitious goals. Wouldn't that be amazing? Of course, it would be.
Is that what a coach do?
Yes. A great coach learns about your long-term goals, understands why you want to achieve them, pressure-tests those goals with you, and then supports you on that journey. They keep you accountable and on track toward achieving your goals. They also help you identify when some of your current activities are not serving your goal or, based on your current state, if the goal may not be the right thing to focus on.
Sometimes I refer to coaching as the guidance system for a hiker lost in the Amazon forest.
Imagine you are that hiker. Your goal is to get out of the Amazon forest safely and as soon as possible. A coach in this case is the GPS or, in its absence, mile markers and direction signs that will help you stay on the trail and get out of the forest safely. Without those mile markers and direction signs, the chances of you getting lost are high.
Can we achieve our goals without coaches?
Yes, of course we can. However, by design, big ambitious long-term goals have many opportunities to get sidetracked. Without a proper guardrail system in place, the chances of getting sidetracked are exceptionally high.
Still not convinced you need a coach?
As I shared in the last post, all top athletes have both coaches and mentors. If the goal of an athlete is to become world number one, win a Grand Slam, or be the first person from their country to win an Olympic gold, they need a coach and a mentor.
If you have a big ambitious goal like starting a billion dollar startup, rise in corporate ladder or something else, you will benefit from a coach.
A coach ensures that the athlete continues to focus on the big picture, while the mentor ensures that the athlete recovers and focuses on winning the next tactical match in that journey. More on the similarities and differences between coaching and mentoring in a different post.
Please subscribe to receive the upcoming posts in this series on mentoring and coaching. Here are the topics:
How to Find a Coach
How to Coach
10 Mistakes people Make During Coaching