Mental Fitness – Coaching Your Way to Better Mental Health: Mental Health Awareness Week

There are a huge range of ways that coaching can support and promote good mental health, especially in the professional and high-pressure environments that we all experience at work. So, I have put together a list of the 5 most impactful ways that coaching can transform the way we see ourselves and our environment to help keep us in top physical and mental condition.

1. Stress management: Whether it is time management, delegation or team management, a coach can spend time with you to work through the things which cause you stress at work and find the solutions that work best for you.
2. Work/ Life balance: Many of the topics brought to a coaching session centre on work/ life balance. A coach can offer protected time away from the daily tasks and ‘to do’ lists to really consider how you can work efficiently to free up more time for the things you love. They can also spend time working through what your priorities are and offer support to find alignment between what you value and how you spend your time.
3. Self-awareness and reflection: Coaching offers you the opportunity to reflect on thought patterns that you may not have questioned before. This might help to change negative or unhelpful scripts and improve your mental well-being in the process.
4. Confidence and self-sufficiency: By setting goals and celebrating progress, coaching reinforces self-belief and a sense of control, which are protective factors against negative mental health outcomes.
5. Isolation reduction and safe space: A coach offers a confidential, non-judgmental space to talk through challenges that might not be shareable elsewhere.

In summary, coaching can act as a useful tool in your mental fitness toolkit. If you haven’t tried coaching before and would like to know more, please don’t hesitate to get in touch or take a look at the ICF website to find out more.

Helena Deacon, Head of UK Mergers and Acquisitions, The Old Station Nursery