As stated on the International Coaching Federation (ICF) website:

“ICF defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. The process of coaching often unlocks previously untapped sources of imagination, productivity and leadership.

We all have goals we want to reach, challenges we’re striving to overcome and times when we feel stuck. Partnering with a coach can change your life, setting you on a path to greater personal and professional fulfillment.”

Each package includes one coaching session per month (approximately 45 minutes to 1 hour in length) and free unlimited email and text support for the duration of the coaching package (for responding to quick questions, sharing resources, and providing accountability to help you follow-through on your action steps and goals).

In each session, you are in the driver’s seat: you identify the session topic and desired takeaway, and Coach Stephanie takes cues from you whether to coach (i.e., ask questions to elevate your inner wisdom so you can pave your own path forward) or advise (offer suggestions, provide insights, or suggest homework exercises). Sessions may be about any topic of your choosing, and the topic of each session within a package may vary at your discretion.

Coaching is a co-creative process between the coach and client to support the client’s forward movement toward maximizing their personal or professional potential. Unlike therapy, coaching is neither diagnostic nor backward-looking. Therapy often looks to the past to understand the root of clients’ current emotions. Compared to coaching, therapy is often more focused on developing skills to manage emotions and issues rooted in the past.

Yes! It is not uncommon for clients to attend coaching and therapy concurrently as complementary sources of support. If you are currently in therapy and wish to additionally pursue coaching, consider first discussing this with your therapist.

In coaching, the coach asks the client open-ended questions to help the client experience a shift in perspective and identify the path forward for themself. The coach also may provide accountability support to help the client follow through on their intended goals and actions.

Mentoring, consulting, and advising involve suggesting what an individual should do. The mentor, consultant, or advisor may express their opinions and problem-solve the situation with the client.

Clients of coaching occasionally seek advice or perspective from their coach. Coach Stephanie only provides advice and opinions when her clients explicitly seek it or provide their permission to do so in a given moment. Coach Stephanie respects the wholeness, complexity, and capability of her clients and therefore does not provide unsolicited advice or wield her opinions on what individuals “should” do. Coach Stephanie believes and trusts that each client is the expert of their own domain and therefore coaches her clients to elevate their inner wisdom.

Coaching focuses on personal growth and development, overcoming difficulties and maladaptive behaviors, and developing resilience. Rooted in positive psychology, coaching leverages appreciative inquiry and strengths-based approaches to support the client’s forward movement toward maximizing their personal or professional potential. Coaches also hold space for the client to state “implementation intentions,” or if-then plans that articulate the when, where, and how goals will be attained. Implementation intentions have been substantiated by more than 30 years of social psychology research, and a growing body of neuroscience research involving fMRI scans demonstrate neural correlates with implementation intentions.

Further reading

American Psychologist. Positive psychology [special issue]. (2000). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

Cooperrider, D. L., & Srivastva, S. (1987). Appreciative inquiry in organizational life. In W. A. Pasmore & R. W. Woodman (eds.), Research in Organizational Change and Development, Vol. 1 (129-169). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Gollwitzer, P. M., & Brandstätter, V. (1997). Implementation intentions and effective goal pursuit. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 186–199.

Gordon, S., 2008. Appreciative inquiry coaching. International Coaching Psychology Review, 3(1), pp.17-29.

Hallam, G.P., Webb, T.L., Sheeran, P., et al. (2015). The neural correlates of emotion regulation by implementation intentions. PloS one, 10(3), p.e0119500.

Milkman, K. L., Beshears, J., Choi, J. J., et al. (2011). Using implementation intentions prompts to enhance influenza vaccination rates. PNAS: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108, 10415–10420

Morganson, V.J., Litano, M.L. and O'Neill, S.K., (2014). Promoting work–family balance through positive psychology: A practical review of the literature. The Psychologist-Manager Journal, 17(4), p.221.

Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Wieber, F., Thürmer, J.L. and Gollwitzer, P.M., (2015). Promoting the translation of intentions into action by implementation intentions: behavioral effects and physiological correlates. Frontiers in human neuroscience, p.395.

Stephanie is a CTA Certified Coach and adheres to the International Coaching Federation’s Code of Ethics.

If you have additional questions, please contact Dr. Stephanie Pearl (spearl@adaptiverootsconsulting.com).