What readily comes to most people's minds when they they first think of a coach is often someone affiliated with sports or personal training. However, although coaching emerged from the domain of sports and fitness in the 1960's, its since grown to apply to those that assist people in their training and both personal and professional development. Today, you can find coaches that focus on nearly every domain of their personal and professional lives ranging from executive coaching, business coaching, career coaching, relationship coaching, stress coaching, (yes) sports and fitness coaching, and much more. Generally speaking, coaches dedicate their focus to things that they've dedicated a great deal of time and energy learning about and acquiring a great deal of experiential knowledge about. They may additionally have certification or dedicated education that provides them with advanced knowledge pertaining to their specialty. For example, Dr. Aaron Halliday has a doctorated degree in industrial and organizational psychology and this education provides him with a wide range of business knowledge and knowledge about people - their thoughts, feelings, behaviours, and what helps or hinders their success in both work and non-work contexts. This training has given him a wide breadth of expert-level evidence-based knowledge about human performance, goal setting, leadership, work, success, burnout, relational dynamics, entrepreneurship, adversity, resilience, and physical and mental wellness among many other things. Although you don't need credentials as extensive as an advanced degree to be a coach it certainly doesn't hurt.

Generally speaking, coaching is an active partnership that strives to unlock a person's maximum potential and help them learn and grow. The partnership is not one of teacher and student where the coach teaches the coachee everything that they need to know, but rather reflects a dynamic where the coach helps the coachee to learn for themselves. It's better to teach a man to fish than it is to simply give them fish for a day after all. Under ideal circumstances, the coach uses their talent to set the coachee up for successful learning and development. For example, if you're struggling to achieve things in your life, an effective coach may refer to the wide range of research showcasing how to set goals and tailor your life to elicit optimal goal attainment, they may guide you to apply this information in your daily life, and they may nudge or remind you along the way to keep you on track to success. Just as with more traditional fitness coaching, the coach can offer guidance and knowledge, but if the coachee decides not to practice, engage with the training, or commit themselves to daily exercise and nutrition goals it's unlikely they're going to see much progress.

Effective coaching involves a collaborative, solution-focused, results-oriented process that enhances work performance, life experience, self-directed learning, and personal or professional growth of the coachee. It involves a partnership between the coachee an individual coach or a coaching team that supports the coachee in their journey toward achievement, goal attainment, and specific meaningful objectives. Coaches often use dialogue, assessments, tools, techniques, exercises, reflection and self-discovery to help people to learn, move through their challenges, and thrive as they grow.

Coaches assist people best by making people's growth faster, safer, and more effective in the long-run.

Life can be hard, but you don't have to go at it alone. Whether it be for personal or professional development, coaching is a learning and development intervention that uses a collaborative, reflective, goal-focused relationship to achieve targeted outcomes that are valued by the coachee. Face-to-face coaching involves the coach and coachee meeting in-person to collaborate, reflect, strategize, discuss, and otherwise work through challenges and pursue goals set by the coachee. Due to being in-person it comes at a greater cost of time, money, and other resources but there may be additional benefits to be had depending on you as an individual and your specific needs.

In-person coaching may work for some goals better than others, but generally speaking the research shows that coaching is similarly effective regardless of it taking place in-person or in a remote context. Research generally shows that there are a host of other, more important factors to consider other than whether your coaching is taking place in-person or in a remote context. For example, it is much more important that you choose a coach that has the requisite knowledge, skills, and other abilities that will help faclitate you to achieve your goals.

In person coaching may be a better fit for you if you feel it's worth the additional time, money, and other resources that commuting to an in-person destination may incur. If you feel that you connect better with your coach and believe that your sessions are more effective when they take place in-person then it may be that you have a personal preference that's better fit for in-person coaching. Additionally, if you and your coach agree that in-person coaching would be more effective for targeting your particular challenges it may be that the situation or context is better suited to in-person coaching. However, this shouldn't be assumed to mean that in-person coaching is in any way better than remote coaching. It's really more about what's best for you and your needs as an individual.

Remote-coaching, also known as tele-coaching or online coaching has existed for many years. However, the COVID pandemic had a monumental impact on how people learn & interact with one another. As a result, as with Zoom conferencing for both work and school, in recent years coaching has increasingly grown to be more commonly & more effectively practiced remotely. Research shows that the majority of coaches have increased their use of remote coaching tools by 74% since March 2020.

So, like the rest of the world, the landscape of coaching is also changing... but you're probably wondering how does this impact you as a coachee and what should you expect from remote coaching relative to in-person coaching? Remote coaching may remain largely unchanged relative to face-to-face coaching or it may require some additional thought and care and customization depending on what the focus of the training is. For example, fitness coaching can occur digitally, but it may be more challenging for the coach to do things like check the athlete's form and make finer adjustments to maintain the athelete's form. But that doesn't mean digital fitness coaching is impossible. In fact, many fitness coaches maintained a digital business online during the most recent COVID pandemic. There's also good evidence that indicates that remote coaching is just as effective as face-to-face coaching. So it seems there's little reason to worry about ineffectiveness when it's done right by trained professionals.

What remote coaching does offer is more flexibility in terms of your schedule and availability. So long as it meets the schedule of your coach, coaching can now be done anytime regardless of where you are in the world. It also has the potential to drop costs as coaches and coachees don't have to spend time and money meeting at a specified location. This means you have the initial cost savings in terms of your commute time and transportation costs but you may also save more money if the coach passes their savings onto their clients as well. Beyond that, when done well remote coaching still has the ability to improve people's experience, wellbeing, success, and goal attainment.

It may just come down to a personal preference as some tend to prefer a more digital or face-to-face experience.