What is the point? Throughout my life, this question has reared its head. As a research supervisor, I learnt to respond to the claims or points my students were making by asking: “So what?” I would say to them: “What’s the point? Tell me, why should I care? Explain why it matters.” I became a researcher, a university lecturer, and a coach through answering those questions: they require reflection and position shifting. 

I realise now that the question of the point had always been there at the back of my mind in everything that I did. I have always loved physical exercise – yoga, swimming, hiking. Why? Cause I knew what the point was – the feel-good endorphins and the zen state those activities generate in my body and my mind. Increasing the regularity of the activity, increases the chemical changes and pleasure of those feelings. 

On the other hand, I used to hate small talk – cause what’s the point? It was when I began working in tourism that I started to appreciate the art of conversation is in making connections – the pleasure of sharing, learning, while having fun. In fact, it is the same playfulness, curiosity and lightness that underpins effective teaching.

As an academic, in writing and lecturing, I would ask this question of the subjects that I was teaching and researching. At times, I would feel dissatisfied by my own answers and I was often unconvinced by those of others. 

It was only recently that I realised that this question could no longer be minimized or sidelined in my own professional life. If I couldn’t answer it, it was a problem. What I understood is that it is the key question for me in terms of motivation. If I can’t answer this in a satisfactory way in a given area of life, then I will have little or at best low motivation towards completing tasks or carrying projects through to timely completion.

Discovering coaching first as a coachee and later as a qualified coach has given me an exhilarating answer to the question: ‘What’s the point…of coaching?’ Well, ultimately, it’s about making a difference. I believe that we all have the capacity to make a meaningful contribution to the future of the planet and to the humans and other beings to which it is home. However, we have all been shaped by past experiences: family, relationships, religion, social norms, sexuality, gender, politics, history… All of these things go into making us the exceptional individuals that we are but they also contribute to our limitations. 

We all have limits. It’s important to understand them and respect them. They protect us and keep us safe. However, sometimes we limit ourselves without even realising, without being aware that there is another way to see a situation, to understand our own reactions or those of others. What coaching enables us to do is to take a step back and stand outside of our own frame of reference. We can refer to it as “paradigm shifting”. This perhaps sounds like a grand term – it simply means the ability to see situations, ourselves and others from a different perspective. This enables us to remove some of the blinkers that we have grown up with and to question the meaning or value we give to things based on our past experiences. Freed from the fetters of the past, we can take new decisions and actions to move freely towards our purpose, our “point” on a micro and macro level. 

For me, then, the point of coaching is to support people in uncovering and realising their raison d’être, their special contribution, as an individual, and sharing that with their group or team, and their community.

“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”

– Mahatma Gandhi