Becoming a Coach: My Journey

I have always been passionate about helping people live the best version of their lives and maximize their full potential and so in 2020, I took to my love of impacting lives and started creating awareness on different subject matter on YouTube. This passion birthed the “Amazing Grace with Bose” show. The vision is to inspire and motivate people to become more self-aware and bring about a positive mindset shift.

Saddled with this responsibility, I deemed it necessary to become more knowledgeable and competent in the practice of professional coaching. I consider it a developmental journey that will add value to my personal and professional life as well as my pursuit to partner with people to be able to come to an epiphanic moment and maximize their personal and professional potential.

Helping clients to gain clarity, create an outcome and getting to that aha moment has been very fulfilling. The journey was a combination of new learnings, new experiences, and the awakening that our life experiences really do affect how we learn.

The knowledge of the competencies and the need to evoke awareness and partner with the client to think deep and look inwards to gain clarity to arrive at solutions that are workable have been very rewarding.

The coaching competencies of maintaining presence and active listening to what the client is ‘saying and not saying’, the tone, mannerism and the ability to be silent sometimes for reflection during coaching sessions, made me mindful and curious to gain more insight, build trust and create a very supportive and conducive atmosphere that allows the client to be open and willing to share.

One thing that really amazed me was the speed with which I adopted the coaching mindset, I became more curious and more present in my engagement with people. I immediately started applying the competencies not only in my peer to peer coaching but in my personal life and my current role as a Media and Public Relations practitioner, where I need to engage with many internal and external stakeholders and supervise people.

Hitherto, I had the tendency to always proffer solutions and to fix problems when people come to me for help or guidance, instead of partnering with them to gain insights and take action but I quickly realized during the coaching journey that it was more beneficial to empower the client to unlock their fullest potential and develop their capabilities to bring about an awakening rather than advise them on what to do. The need for people to get clarity and own the solutions to whatever they are dealing with was clear as crystal and it dawned on me that, it’s the only way they can be invested and committed to the outcome.

The coaching journey has broadened my knowledge and exceeded my expectation, I see myself as a coach even though, I have many hours of peer coaching to complete before I get the ICF certification. Someday, soon, every journey starts with a step, my eyes on the ball.

• Author: Grace Abosede Ojougboh
• Title of the Blog: Becoming a Coach: My journey
  About the Author:  Grace has about 35 years’ experience post-graduation that cuts across teaching, hospitality, business, policy, telecommunications regulation, Media and Public Relations. She constantly finds new ways to develop herself and grow. She is a Deputy Director in the telecom regulatory sector in Nigeria and the Host of Amazing Grace with Bose on YouTube.
• Program Attended with CTT: ACC
  Reason for taking the program: To continually engage in self-development and acquire the knowledge and skill that will enable my passion to bring about a positive mindset shift and self-awareness as I partner with people to achieve their greatest potential.
  What worked for you: Embodying a coaching mindset, the peer to peer and mentoring sessions.
  What benefits you got: Learning to listen actively and the realization that powerful questioning can unlock a person’s potential.