Coaching is a rapidly growing intervention to help individuals move forward, improve, develop, learn new skills, find personal success, achieve goals and manage life change and personal challenges.

Personal coaching is effective for a variety of situations, whether in your personal life, career, or corporate and business life. Individuals who wish to get the absolute most out of their lives would benefit from working with a coach to support and enable them to do so. A person who finds themselves saying things such as, 'if only I could do X', 'I'd like to be better at Y', 'there must be more to life' or 'I need some support to achieve Z', would certainly benefit from working with a personal coach.

In the US where coaching originated, the idea of having a personal coach is commonplace and despite advances in the UK, we have a bit of catching up to do. That said 50% of UK companies now have coaching initiatives within their organisations. As the field of coaching grows, more and more people are realising that coaching is a much more effective means of personal development than traditional training. Far from the 'weak' people being those who embark on coaching, it's those with aspirations, dreams and ambition who decide to work with a coach. It's the people who wish to take control of their life and be the person they want to be. Working with a coach is something to be proud of.

Coaching is not about instructing individuals, so a personal coach should not tell their clients which course of action they should take. To do so would assume that they know best for them which is absolutely not the case. A coach will work with their client using advanced listening and questioning techniques to enable them to decide and commit to their own personal and unique course of action. Coaching is a learning experience for a client however it is not like training. A trainer shares information to improve delegates' performance whereas in coaching, clients learn by finding their own solutions and direction, practicing and reflecting in a safe environment. Training also assumes that one program fits all and rarely takes into account the individual differences of the delegates. Contrastingly, each coaching session is as unique as the clients themselves, accommodating individual differences in learning styles and preferences.

In short, the answer to that question is 'no'. Counselling is the correct intervention for individuals who need to address their past, and make sense of it in order to be able to move on. It may also be the best solution for those at a point of crisis or mental illness. Such individuals should seek the help of a counsellor and not perceive coaching as an alternative solution.

Coaching focuses on where clients are in their lives now, where they want to be in the future and bridges the gap. Whilst past events may be acknowledged in the coaching process to understand a client's current position, they are not dwelled upon and a coach will not offer analysis or insights into these events.

One similarity between coaching and counselling is the level of confidentiality which exists within the coaching or counselling relationship. None of the personal and private information which is shared will be disclosed further.

As well as choosing a coach with whom you feel you can build a professional relationship, it's worthwhile doing a little bit of homework to check out their credentials. This is not only finding out what their clients have to say about them by way of testimonials but also what qualifies them as a coach. The coaching profession is unregulated in the sense that individuals do not have to have a specific qualification to call themselves a 'coach'. Due to this, there are many people marketing themselves as such who have had no formal training. The decision to work with a coach is an investment in yourself, and you should be safe in the knowledge that your coach is qualified and credible.

Libera Coaching founder Jill King has a BSc (Hons) and MSc in Psychology as well as a Diploma in Personal Coaching from The Coaching Academy www.the-coaching-academy.com. Clients can therefore be assured that Jill is formally bound by the strict code of ethics of both The British Psychological Society www.bps.org.uk of which she is a member and also The Coaching Academy.