Hi Aussie girl,
why don't you just do it? ;-) Seeing your background I think you've been coaching already for years, without noticing. That's what happened to me.
I've been working with people ever since I started my first job, and all my jobs have trained me in communication with people.
My first job was at the employment office, where people who had lost their jobs came to apply for unemployment benefits - that trains you! People sit there and cry, others want to shoot you or beat you up, others are just completely shocked and helpless that they've just lost their jobs (I did that in East Germany, just after the wall came down and "all" people lost their jobs because in East Germany there was no such thing as unemployment... so for most of the people who came to me this was a life changing experience). And all I could do was just to listen to them and try to calm them down.
After that I worked as a travel agent - with much happier clients ;-) but who also appreciated if you listened and really found out what kind of holiday their looking for and offered them the perfect solution for their plans. Later I worked in several other customer service jobs where I always ended up getting forwarded the "difficult" clients who nobody could handle.
Now, for the past 7 years I've been a manager also in a customer service environment and I never EVER wanted to become a manager, because to me it meant controlling other people. I kept saying "I want to be a coach rather than a manager" but I never knew what that actually meant. To me just meant that I'm there to guide them rather to control or tell them what to do. I wanted to be kind of a "helpdesk" for whatever problem they can't solve. I love it if someone says "Call Anja, she'll know what to do!" And this is how I managed my team and I got to love it, it wasn't so bad being a manager after all ;-)
And then suddenly last year I came across the coaching and the light bulb above my head went on
and I thought that's it! All my interests and my skills are combined in this profession so this could be the job that I could have 100% fun doing. So I started to study it, because of course I have to learn some techniques and develop my skills, but the studies are fun and not hard at all because I'm really passionate about it and best of all, somethings are not new, I noticed I've been doing them all along, so I don't really have to memorize and learn things ;-) I just have "names" for them now and get some explanation why they work so well.
Okay, I hope I didn't go over board just now ;-) but if you think it's something for you, just try it, you don't really have anything to lose, have you? That was my approach, even in case I wouldn't make it as a coach, I can use all the knowledge in my current job.
And I'm only half way into my studies and my company already asked me to train other managers now, because they noticed that the department I was leading has had the least turnover rate (I hope that's the right word, I mean people resigning, coming and going) over the past years, so I must be doing something different then the others ;-))
So, coaching is good!!
Good luck!
Anja
