Strengthening confidence and self-esteem benefits everyone. Such self-assurance in your own capabilities opens opportunities in every area of life. Unfortunately, we cannot simply switch our confidence on or off as the need arises. Rather, confidence is an outcome stemming from multiple factors. It’s influenced—in both positive and negative ways—by social media, friends, family, one’s own expectations, coworkers, and more.
To gain clarity regarding the factors comprising one’s confidence, some people seek the perspective and collaboration of a confidence coach. Confidence coaching enables you to create action plans to improve the areas in your life with the greatest impact on your self esteem.
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Confidence Coach: Definition and Meaning
A confidence coach, also known as a self-esteem coach, helps you increase your confidence in many life and career contexts. While some coaches may specifically label themselves as confidence coaches, any type of well-rounded coach can help in this area.
At a)plan coaching, our whole-person approach often leads clients to work on building confidence, among other things. Not an either-or proposition, confidence falls on a scale. It’s a matter of degree. What level or degree of confidence one needs to be happy or satisfied depends entirely upon that person. If you desire to grow and become more confident in any aspect of your life, then you’re the ideal candidate to work with a confidence coach.
3 Reasons to Consider Confidence Coaching
Why and when should you work with a confidence coach? In our experience working with hundreds of coaching clients at a)plan, there are three key reasons:
1. Coaching for Your Career
From the CEO trying to determine whether to take the company in a new direction to the new manager realizing that managing people differs tremendously from doing the job, coaching is a game-changer. Confidence coaching, in particular, helps you build the insight, resilience, and emotional intelligence to make both smart and hard decisions. Because of these benefits, many companies actually subsidize coaching as an employee benefit, especially when they know employees welcome coaching.
Working with a coach is a valuable investment in yourself, as it will help you summon the courage, motivation, and savvy to advance your career faster and more smoothly. It helps improve job satisfaction and empowers you to get more from your work, perform better, and progress in your career.
2. Coaching for Your Relationships
Nurturing healthy relationships requires the courage to broach difficult conversations, especially with the people dearest to you. Whether you’re confronting a wayward child, a disgruntled employee, or a stubborn partner, coaching helps you build and maintain healthier relationships through better, more effective communication that tackles the good, the bad, and the ugly.
3. Coaching for Everyday Wellbeing
Taking a more holistic view, coaching improves everyday wellbeing. In the above use cases, confidence is an attribute that serves specific moments – from delivering a presentation at work to managing a challenging situation with a friend or family member.
But just as importantly, confidence improves your baseline mood, whether while walking down the street, buying a coffee, or greeting your neighbors. Sometimes the little things are the most improved as a result of increased confidence. That alone is reason to invest time and energy in improving your confidence.
Hiring a Coach Doesn’t Mean Something Is Wrong
Working with a confidence coach does not necessarily suggest something is wrong. At a)plan, we always start with what’s working. As this relates to confidence, we start by asking, “when are you most confident?” Then we unpack the client’s response to build on that starting point.
It’s important to note that coaching is not just a form of therapy. Therapists typically unpack the patient’s past, going back to one’s earliest memories. Coaching takes a different approach. At a)plan, we make note of past traumas and events; however, we don’t dwell on them. Instead, we focus most on opportunities for the future.
To engage a client in our process, we begin with the assumption that the desired outcome of increased confidence is entirely possible, regardless of past traumas or problems. To that end, coaching for confidence is about assessing what’s in front of you, then looking forward to make actionable changes that benefit your future.
Interested in confidence coaching? Find your perfect coach in minutes with our free coach-matching tool.
Confidence and Whole Person Coaching
Confidence coaching aligns closely with a)plan’s whole-person coaching model because confidence relates to nearly every other aspect of your life. For example, lack of confidence may stem from imposter syndrome or from overly ambitious self-expectations. For the client dealing with these challenges, improvement requires intent. With a plan of action and deliberate steps forward, the client shifts perspectives in one area of life to witness progress in another.
There’s no secret to building confidence. No quick list of tips and tricks or feel-good articles will suddenly improve your confidence. The power of a great coach is that they collaborate with you to develop new perspectives, ideas, and approaches over the long term. With a dedicated thought partner helping you redesign your life for the better, your ability to build confidence becomes much easier. A coach helps you build that foundation for continued improvement and greater confidence.
Where to Find the Best Confidence Coaches
A sustainable strategy to build self-esteem requires a holistic approach. As mentioned, a)plan coaches have rich experience on this topic, because building confidence is integral to nearly every successful engagement.
It’s important to note that some coaching programs or courses offer access to the outcomes of enhanced confidence, like stronger executive presence or public speaking. Unfortunately, many of these programs don’t dig below the surface or customize their curricula in sustainable ways. Taking a different approach at a)plan, we teach you how to work with your strengths to build confidence, which becomes a self-perpetuating cycle that leads to new forms of self-assurance. While one-off courses or sessions give clients tips or tricks, it’s ongoing, one-on-one coaching that creates the habits and skills necessary for sustained success.
This work takes time, commitment, and consistency with the same person (i.e., your coach) who learns what makes you tick. Once you find the perfect coach for you, increasing your confidence becomes substantially more attainable and sustainable.
For anyone searching for the perfect confidence coach, a)plan’s free coach matching survey gives you personalized coach recommendations from our roster of nearly 50 expert coaches. For those serious about finding a great coach, there’s no better place to start your search.
