Once upon a time, when I thought of coaches, I thought of this:
Then, when I got a little older and anyone mentioned coach, I thought of this:
However I soon realised that actually a coach was one of these:
And then I discovered In Treatment and decided that a coach must be a person … someone very much like Gabriel Byrne:
But that’s not right either, is it? Gabriel is not a coach. He’s a psychotherapist, and he does a lot of analysing. He says things like:
‘Don’t you think that the feelings you’re having are linked to your dog’s rejection of you when you were just five years old … when, after licking your hand, your dog threw up … and after that you found that you could never relate to puppies … so, when your fiance brought you a present of a cute little puppy all dressed up with a blue satin ribbon, you saw this as an act of aggression …’
With apologies to any psychotherapists reading this – definitely no offence intended. But no, this is not what coaches say as I now know very well after spending time in the company of a very fine group of coaches this summer, courtesy of our sponsors NAWE (National Association of Writers in Education) and the Arvon Foundation, and our trainers Deb Barnard (Relational Dynamics 1st) and Anne Caldwell (NAWE).
So, to clarify, a little bit of information about coaching and how it can be applied to writing. I work as a coach with people from the arts and cultural industries and – in particular – with writers and artists who have to deal with issues such as prioritising, processing negative feedback, dealing with blocks, goal setting, overcoming limiting beliefs, defeating procrastination, dealing with stress, maintaining motivation, completing tasks, and developing confidence in their own abilities. As a writer myself, I have had to face many of these challenges. So, believe me, if you’re a writer too, I know what you go through on a daily basis.
As a Relational Dynamics coach, I help people to see ways of progressing with their work – and also their life – in ways that they may not have thought of. We all have our own answers to the challenges we face in life and work, but very often we don’t know where to look for those answers. I work with writers as well as clients in other fields, helping them to explore their goals, their current reality, their options and what they will commit to in order to achieve their goals … and when they will make that commitment.
Where appropriate I combine my coaching skills with NLP, facilitating the client’s own self-directed learning and development and helping them to gain clarity around what it is that they want: the client already has the answers, but has to find them out through a personal reflective process. In working with students and young people my aim is to help them achieve their full learning potential.
Through the Abu Dhabi Writers’ Studio I offer guidance on how to develop as a writer, think creatively, enhance writing techniques, build writing confidence, and establish and achieve writing goals. Many writers I encounter have side-stepped from successful working lives to take up a new interest and direction in the world of writing. Often their talent has almost gone to waste due to friends and family not taking their efforts seriously, or due to lack of feedback or simply not knowing what to do next. Through a variety of workshop activities, the Abu Dhabi Writers’ Studio supports these writers from the writing stage through to constructive feedback, to redrafting and to submission for publication.
For practising writers who have work in progress, we have … well … the Work In Progress writers’ group, meeting weekly to write, to read and discuss their work and to exchange ideas about the writing life.
For further details about the Abu Dhabi Writers’ Studio and Work In Progress, you can mail me at AllWriteInAbuDhabi@gmail.com
And now, just a final word of clarification. Yes, I am a coach … but I absolutely do not work here:
Though, who knows? It’s probably a very good place to find inspiration. Don’t rule it out.
All Write 