Some of you are aware that I recently started offering artist coaching to writers, painters, musicians, and other creative types. This has resulted in people asking me a lot of questions, some curious, some skeptical. It has also resulted in several people signing on for a two-month coaching stint with me, which has affirmed what I already suspected: that this is meaningful and enjoyable work. For the uninitiated, though, the term "artsist coaching" does tend to raise eyebrows. So I wanted to demystify it here.
If you are one the skeptical ones, thinking that artist coaching sounds like fluff and can probably offer little in the way of really helping someone, you might be interested to know that I was one of you first. I never envisioned myself working with a coach. And I certainly I never imagined calling myself a coach. Coaches were for athletes, and therefore existed in a world I neither belonged in or aspired to. When the trend began for business coaches and life coaches, I made fun of it, to tell the truth. In this context, "coach" seemed like something that anyone could call themselves, and therefore, like a job title that lacked both authority and integrity. Which I, as a credentialed therapist and therefore "real" helping professional, should know. (My apologies to the growing number of my colleagues who have added coaching to their helping professional repertoires, have obtained coaching training, and who are doing it responsibly and well).
What changed things for me was the experience of being coached by the creativity coaching pioneer, Eric Maisel. I had enlisted his help in addressing some difficulty I was having in choosing a project and goal for my next creative writing venture. Sounds like a practical problem, right? Something a good self-help article might be able to solve? But it actually ran a lot deeper than that, and manifested itself in my being a very stuck-feeling and frustrated writer, spinning my wheels, not finishing things, sometimes not writing at all.
In his coaching work with me, Eric asked me questions based on his many years of learning about what makes artists tick and what gets in their way, and then he listened deeply to what I said, catching clues in my phrasing of thoughts and feelings that I was barely conscious of myself. Within hours of our talking, I knew what I wanted and needed to work on next, and very early the next morning, I was off and running with a renewed sense of purpose and a deep connection to what I was writing.
I continue to work as both coach and coachee. Both of these feed my creative writing, which in turn feeds the coaching. It's a pretty good gig.
So, what is artist coaching? (Eric Maisel and a number of others who are doing the work call it creativity coaching. I choose to call it artist coaching for reasons that probably belong in a different post). In a nutshell, it's a working relationship in which the coach offers the coachee a combination of support, accountability, assistance with setting goals and monitoring progress, and feedback from someone who knows a lot about the unique set of joys and challenges that make up the artist's life. It can be accomplished one to one or in groups, in person or from a distance. I provide mine through email and phone.
As a coach right now, I'm helping artists work on goals which range from showing paintings in an art exhibit to marketing a poetry collection to resuming a regular arts practice that was abandoned for years. It's interesting and gratifying work.
As a coachee, I'm working regularly on a large project I had given up on previously, challenging myself to stay the course and keep showing up for the writing work even when life gets busy, even when my self-doubt and self-criticism would have me abandon the writing and in doing so, abandon myself.
I have had the experience of being a client in therapy and a student in writing classes. These have been helpful in their own ways. But when it comes to that place where my personality traits and identity as a writer meet my creative work, it was artist coaching that helped me understand myself better and get out of my own way.
So that's the story on my new artist coaching venture. I'll be writing more about it in the weeks and months ahead. If you're curious about anything I haven't covered here, I welcome any questions and will likely feature them (without identifying you) in upcoming posts.
Now, back to that writing project of mine...
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