After Covid
Throughout lockdown I was met by new challenges in my role, the biggest for me, was not being able meet people face to face. But I learned, my coaching knowledge and skills developed. I realised for many people, virtual contact works better and I was able to continue meaningful conversations and experiences with people in a different way, it allowed me to recognise barriers to working alongside people, I had not noticed before.
Stuck in quarantine, I reflected on what coaching had become and looked like before and to be perfectly honest, there was a lot of repetition and some relationships had become stagnant where a goal or focus had been lost. Maybe we got too comfortable with the notion of being different and a weekly walk in the park, coffee in a café, had become a revolving door, like the cycles of service dependency we recognise as ‘broken’ parts of a more traditional system.
Coaching after Covid will become more diverse than ever. Going forward into a period when a sense of new normality begins, we can create a re-energized platform for people to be heard, to be seen and to be prioritised. My hope is that that a new version of ‘normal’ will kick-start the re-write of systems and processes that we know don’t work for people. I will use the new normal to be braver, energised and determined to step up the delivery of Personal Transition Service response, by continuing to keep reflecting on what really works for people, shared learning and really listening to those we work alongside.
When it comes to returning to the daily grind: a fresh outlook, lessons of a global pandemic is surely the time to do it differently, to start as we mean to go on. We will all shortly be presented with an important choice: How much from before can we carry forward with us?
Sam