Professional coaching is personal training for your mind. Our thoughts often get in the way of our actions and results. Coaching helps you identify thoughts that do not serve you and replace them with thoughts that do. It is a collaborative process where the coach helps elicit negative thought patterns so they may be deconstructed, reframed, and reshaped into new thoughts that further the client’s ambitions and endeavors.

Most people know that athletes rely on coaches to improve their performance. However, professionals of any kind, including physicians, can benefit in similar ways. More specifically, coaching can help physicians:

• identify, clarify, and develop a new vision for what their lives look like
• embark on a journey of introspection and personal development
• discover untapped potential and foster a growth mindset
• stay accountable to the results they want to create

Do you ever stop and question the thoughts and beliefs you have? No? You should. Chances are they’re holding you back.

Of the tens of thousands of thoughts you think daily, countless are automatic, ingrained thoughts designed to keep you in your status quo. Your brain develops these automatic pathways for two main reasons:

          1. It is designed to be efficient and conserve energy

          2. It tries to stick with what is familiar and comfortable to keep us safe.

But these thought patterns subtly trap us in with “I can never do x…” or “I never have time to…” which prevent us from changing our status quo. This is the brain’s default and it creates a scarcity mindset steeped in fear, stress, and anxiety. 

Coaching works on “rewiring” your brain to stop getting in your way. The coaching process strives to dismantle the fear, stress, and anxieties holding you back and instead cultivate a mindset of abundance imbued with a sense of personal wealth and security. 

This mindset shift requires a journey fraught with vulnerability and discomfort as we challenge our brain to abandon its comfort zone. We embrace this discomfort because it’s the only way to truly grow and fulfill our dreams!

What if I told you that you can change your life by changing your thoughts? It’s that simple. No, really. Does it sound too foo-foo or warm or fuzzy? It may sound hokey, but you really have the power to change your thoughts.

The coaching framework to which I subscribe starts with the idea that your thoughts are simply ideas and sentences your brain forms in response to circumstances or facts about the world around you. Thoughts cause you to experience feelings. Your feelings drive your actions (or inaction). Your actions lead to results.

Through coaching, we work the above framework forwards and backwards so you understand how your thoughts affect your results and how to find thoughts that serve you. I help you develop the mindset to get you the results you want.

Yes, the hallmark study to date is this 2019 JAMA article which describes a randomized control trial examining the impact of professional coaching on physician well-being and distress. The intervention group had statistically significant:

• ↓ emotional exhaustion
• ↓ burnout symptoms
• ↑ quality of life
• ↑ resilience scores

There is overlap between coaching and therapy as coaching is steeped in cognitive behavioral techniques, change principles, and positive psychology. I see them as complementary services. Here is a breakdown of the two:

Therapy: 

• conducted by a licensed mental health professional
• aimed at resolving distress in day to day functioning and relationships
• involves diagnosing and treating problematic beliefs, feelings, and behaviors
• often focuses on past traumas

Coaching:

• conducted by an unlicensed professional
• aimed at helping achieve desired goals and results
• involves clarifying the results you want, identifying any impediments to obtaining those results, and then working to dismantle those impediments
• forward focused, using present as a neutral starting point

Coaching is for anyone who wants to maximize their results and optimize their lives. Even if you’re not struggling and are happy with where you are, you can benefit from coaching.

I believe coaching is specifically invaluable to physicians. As a physician, you are an elite professional with unique stressors and demands on your time and a lot to juggle. You don’t have a lot of wiggle room. It is in this jam-packed and busy context that incremental changes resulting from coaching can have outsized positive impact on your life.

If you are ready to both make a positive change in your life and do the work to make that happen, then coaching is for you!

Yes, anyone can become a coach! Literally.

Coaching is an unregulated industry and there is no official licensure process. While many coaching organizations offer their own certification programs, there is no required standard. That being said, certification via a program can ensure some degree of competence as well as give you credibility.

Yes, absolutely! I have given you all the information on this website you need to get started. In fact, I encourage everyone to practice self-coaching.

My coaching process involves physicians self-coaching between calls and even after we work together. My role is to teach the model directly, offer guidance and nudges, help uncover the results you want, and plan out how to achieve them. I will say having a compassionate, outside perspective really helps bring limiting beliefs forward so they can be addressed in a non-judgmental way.

Coaching is so vital to my life that I continue to pay for professional coaching even while I constantly self-coach myself.