Listed as one of the UK’s Top Ten Coaches by the Independent on Sunday and Sunday Observer, Gladeana McMahon has the reputation of being a leading Transformational and Personal Development Executive Coach. 

A Certified and Accredited Coach, Gladeana is Vice President and Life Fellow of the Association for Coaching one of the lead Professional bodies for Coaching in the UK.  Gladeana McMahon Associates abides by the AC Codes of Ethics and Practice.

As Co-Director for the Centre for Coaching she is recognised as one of the Founders and lead trainers in Cognitive Behavioural Coaching in the UK.

So what is Coaching?

A Coach is someone who is there to help you design, plan and instigate successful business/life strategies. There are basically three types of coaching: 

• Business/Executive Coaching involves helping you improve your performance at work. Executive Coaching is often about the psychology of excellence – that is making what’s good even better and helping your keep ahead of the game. Business Coaching could include helping you consider how to get the best out of your staff; your peers and your superiors as well as helping you identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

• Life/Personal Coaching focuses in a more holistic way on any aspect of your life that you would like to improve. For example, a Life Coach could help you become more assertive with your friends and family, enable you to tackle people and situations you have avoided for fear of looking silly or being rejected and help you overcome a personal block such as taking up a healthier lifestyle.

• Speciality Coaching is offered where the person concerned either seeks or is referred for specialist assistance in a given subject areas such as Stress, Confidence, Spirituality etc.

Although Executive/Business, Life/Personal Coaching and Speciality Coaching are seen as separate activities many people find that they are linked. Sometimes what seems like a business problem may have a connection with other life factors. 

Coaching is:

• Practical
• Skill based
• Individually tailored to each person's requirements
• Fitted around your life and your needs
• Outcome driven
• Usually short-term
• Not a substitute for personal motivation - you still have to take responsibility for the problem, the changes you make and the amount of work you choose to do!

There are many exercises, skills and techniques used in Coaching. The following two exercises give you a taster of the practical application of Life/Business Coaching.

THE LIFE AUDIT
The following exercise aims to help you identify those areas of your life you would benefit from changing. To gain maximum effect, a Life Audit should be undertaken on an annual basis. Once you have completed the audit itself you need to decide how to set about working on those areas you have identified as needing attention.

You will need:

1. Paper
2. Pen
3. A suitably peaceful environment where you will not be disturbed or distracted

What to do: Write down all the things you like and dislike about each of the following eight areas of your life:

• Living Environment
• Family
• Personal Relationship(s)
• Friends/Social Life
• Work/Career
• Finances
• Health
• Inner Soul/Spirit

Consider each of the things you don't like and ask yourself what you could do to change the situation? With personal friendships you may decide that you need to become more assertive and ask for more of what you want. As far as Work/Career goes, you may decide that you need to see your boss to discuss how to improve your chances of promotion and what training might be made available to help with your difficulties giving presentations. You may decide that you need more specialist skills development training and choose to make an appointment to see a Life/Business Coach.

USING IMAGERY

Research suggests that if you visualise yourself being successful you are more likely to become successful. For example, if you can visualise yourself giving a good presentation you trick your brain into believing you have given one already. In a way it is rather like a dress rehearsal where you iron out all the problems in your head.

What to do

1. Find a quiet and safe place
2. Make yourself comfortable
3. Close your eyes and focus on your breathing
4. In the case of presentations, imagine yourself arriving at your venue and being taken to the room the presentation is to be held in. Imagine yourself preparing your handouts or setting up your computer. Imagine the room filling up with people and see yourself breathing deeply and smiling at people.
5. Imagine yourself starting your presentation. What would you say? Go through the whole presentation in your mind and then imagine yourself asking for questions at the end. What type of questions might get asked? Imagine what you would say in response.
6. Repeat this exercise a minimum of 4 times before you actually give your presentation

In addition to the above write down on the left hand side of a page all the things that you think could go wrong on the day and then, on the right hand side, what you would do to compensate.

For example:

Situation: Giving a presentation