Becoming a coach

Today I am celebrating passing my ICF ACC performance evaluation in coaching. An opportune time to reflect on my coaching journey so far, what coaching means to me, and share what I’ve discovered coaching is, and is not. 

I began my coaching training with Evolution Coaching in 2025, but the seed for beginning this journey was sown a few years prior, during a day of coaching for women in academia that I attended while working part-time at a university. I was feeling stuck. I don’t recall the details of the day, but I left with a postcard of a tiger, which I still have, and an assertion to move on, which I did. It was difficult, but I did it.  

Through my coaching practice and training I have discovered coaching can take many forms, but fundamentally it’s a relationship that supports growth. It does this in a particular way. The coaching process chimes with good educational practice, in that it encourages active learning, but it’s not teaching, or advising, instead, coaching assumes that the client is the expert in their own life, and that they hold the answers they seek. My role as the coach is to create a safe space, where the client takes the lead. I am alongside -  following, listening actively and asking powerful questions to elicit new awareness and self-discovery. 

This brings me to an aspect of coaching which I love. As someone who has spent many years working in sound, composing music and creating radio features and documentaries, it’s rewarding to be able to use and enhance my skills in listening and asking pertinent questions for the benefit of my coaching clients. Discovering that coaching is a process in which I can draw on all my creative skills has been a revelation. It enables me to help clients access their own creativity and imagination in surprising ways, whether they see themselves as creative or not. 

Working with voice is a prevalent part of my creative work and research. I have a psychophysical embodied vocal practice, which is a joyful way to deepen my relationship with my voice, and a creative resource that supports health and wellbeing. I have been curious to explore bringing this to coaching, and on occasions it has been appropriate to include some vocal exploration in a session. I hope to continue this exploration with some of my future clients. Embodiment in coaching is about working with the wisdom of the body, it can involve inviting the client to observe bodily sensations, it can also involve observing their movements and gestures and reflecting back to them. Embodied somatic coaching comes naturally to me as I have been sustained by different movement and somatic practices over many decades, and am supported by my Performance Arts training and academic research into ‘embodied knowledge’ and ‘presence’.

Presence is a crucial part of coaching, being present with the client means I am sensitive to what is unfolding in the session. I am listening and observing on many levels, while also being present to myself, my own sensations, thoughts and emotions, and I am present to the environment and surroundings, and what happens in the moment. This is an opportunity to draw on my love of improvisation, which is an art of presence and being alive to life. 

In my own life, coaching and improvisation have been important resources during the challenges I have faced through serious chronic illness and recovery. The ICF are very clear, as am I, that coaching isn’t therapy, although it can be therapeutic, which is what I have experienced myself. During my health crisis I sought out psychological support and gained a great deal of self-awareness and healing from working with a therapist. What coaching has given me is the clarity and framework to take forward focused actions that are meaningful to me both personally and professionally. 

Coaching has been one of the resources that has supported me through a huge period of transition and change. I have discovered that when we have these big life challenges, new layers of experience can be found. We may find that we are listening to our bodies more, and begin to approach life and work differently than we used to - our priorities change. 

Now, as a coach myself, coaching gives me the opportunity to naturally and sensitively draw on all of my lived experience to support the growth of others. Over my lifetime I have accumulated an array of different certificates; a PhD, a teaching training, music grades, a flower arranging badge at Brownies. This training and certificate feels different, and I wonder if this is because becoming a coach feels less about achieving, and more about becoming more myself, while helping others to do the same. 

I coach groups and individuals, online and outside in nature. If you’re interested in doing coaching sessions with me, you can get in touch via my website www.ninaperry.co.uk to arrange a free 30 minute chemistry call.