What are your expectations when it comes to learning a new field and acquiring the skills necessary to become competent in that field? Is it realistic to aspire to become an expert psychotherapist? How much time and how many years of research do you anticipate? How about a skilled lawyer? What about a skilled coach?
What’s deceiving about coaching is that it uses the communication skills that we use in everyday talk. And when you listen to a skilled coach, it often seems like “he is just talking.” And that can lead to a very inadequate conclusion, “I could do that.” Well, yes you could do that once you are trained to know what to do and how to do it. But no, you cannot do it as the professional coach can right now. “But it looks so easy, so natural; you are just asking questions and being supportive, that’s all. Anyone could do that.” Ah, that’s the delusion.
We all know that developing skills and expertise requires regular and disciplined practice. To master the skills taught in ACMC’s coaching sessions, what an outsider sees as straightforward, apparent, and natural is the result of extensive preparation and practice over many years. Competencies generally work this way. You can get fairly proficient at managing most skills in 30 or 90 days. If you want to make a living doing it, though, you need to become so proficient at the fundamentals that you can perform them on autopilot.
False Expectations Vs. Reality
Over the years, we have observed that some people come to ACMC with a lot of false expectations, which include:
#1. I have Read about Coaching
They read a book or two on coaching, they experience a few coaching sessions, they have some training in personal development and they think that they will be able to pick it up and reach 2.5 competency level on the seven skills in one week. Many come and have expectations for themselves of reaching the 2.5 benchmarks on the first practice session. Then they don’t. Typically, they get 1.0 and 1.3 on most of the skills.
Now the problem with such expectations is that within an expectation is a demand. The person did not merely hope to do well and perhaps reach 2.5, he expected it. She demanded it of herself. And when the reality doesn’t meet expectation, the person feels disappointed, disillusioned, and even depressed. In NLP it is said that “it takes a lot of preparation to suffer disappointment.” You have to pump yourself up with desires and turn them into expectations.
Reality:
Keeping an expectation in check so that you don’t set yourself up for disappointment, you need to take the demand out of it. And when you do, it is no longer an expectation. It becomes something else. Perhaps it is now a hope. It could be a probability prediction, “I think that the likelihood of reaching 2.5 is 60%.” And even though that is far too high, at least it is no longer a demand. If the probability was more on the order of 10% chance, that would be more realistic.
#2. Either I Make It or I Don’t
Another false expectation is: It says that there are only two options: either I make it or I don’t. And it doesn’t have anything to do with time.
Reality:
To be aware of and accept that it takes time to learn the knowledge and skills of a field like coaching. It doesn’t happen right away or all at once. It takes a lot of practice to use what you know in the way you talk, relate to others, and think about the different kinds of coaching conversations.
The Bottom Line
Adjusting your expectations so that they are more reality-based and include a time-frame as well as a probability estimate is the answer to false expectations. Then, when you operate with a realistic hope, you stay motivated and persisting—the true keys to expertise.
Curated by Danielle Tan.
Reference:
- [Meta-Coaches] 2023 Morpheus #11 FALSE EXPECTATIONS ABOUT COACHING by L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. Executive Director, ISNS.
