Personal Performance Coaching & NLP

Personal Performance Coaching is about helping you become better at what you do. It's about helping you to create more opportunities and progress more effectively, and it's done in the most powerful way possible; by increasing your awareness and responsibility towards your performance.

Coaching is about change and achieving the results you want. It takes you from where you are now, to where you would like to be. Contrary to physical coaching that you may be used to (usually instruction-based), personal performance coaching offers no pre-conceived ideas or judgement but acts as a catalyst for change. Coaching is successful when the right style of questioning is used to challenge unhelpful beliefs and unlock new ideas.

See also: Coaching philosophy and What is NLP?

By raising your awareness and responsibility, coaching empowers you with the two vital ingredients for effective progress and sustainable change. More specifically within the term of "improving personal performance" coaching and NLP can:

• Reduce pre-event nerves & anxiety
• Build confidence
• Assist with mental preparation, rehearsal & visualisation techniques
• Reduce external distractions
• Improve focus & concentration
• Create training & performance goals
• Help you understand your motivations
• Reduce negative thoughts and self-talk
• Instil positive thinking
• Build mental toughness
• Explore relaxation skills
• Stop unhelpful habits
• Create more helpful routines
• Reduce self-doubt
• Improve self-belief and trust
• Assist with recovery
• Deal with pressure and any 'off-field' issues
• Enable you to think differently
• Improve emotional intelligence (EQ)
• Create a winning mentality
• Offer as much ongoing support as you need

The above list is by no way exhaustive and the specific benefits of coaching largely depend on what you want to get out of the partnership.

In improving personal performance through coaching, you can expect to see measurable results. You might also like to see How can the success of coaching be measured?

Working with Focus Your Performance begins with an initial consultation (either face-to-face or by phone/Skype) to assess your current opportunities and challenges, and align with what you want to achieve. A subsequent program of sessions and level of support and involvement is then agreed.

You will not be given a set ‘programme’ or ‘off-the-shelf’ prescription for improving performance. You will have your own unique style of learning and progressing, and your own lifestyle that needs to be tailored to. Focus Your Performance will use a fully tailored approach to ensure you get the best results from coaching.

The structures of sessions depend largely on your individual requirements but are managed by Focus Your Performance to assess progress since your last session, clarify goals and targets, move through stages of thought, generate new thinking and options for progress, then create a responsibility for action.

Usually within a coaching framework, sessions could include specific styles of questioning, exercises, models, tools and techniques appropriate to your situation.

The specific content of sessions is lead by you with the support of Focus Your Performance. You might be surprised what you discover to improve your performance and where your thoughts lead you. You might be surprised what is holding you back.

Although Focus Your Performance has a love of sport, personal performance coaching works with you and your mind, irrespective of the sport or business sector. It is your passion and performance in what you do that Focus Your Performance specialises in.

What's your game?

From amateur to elite, any level of athlete or business professional can work successfully with Focus Your Performance.

Also, as long as you’re passionate about progress, open to new ideas and willing to think differently, it doesn’t matter what your age is. Focus Your Performance is CRB checked and has also previously worked successfully with minors.

Get in touch now to arrange a free consultation.

Most of the very best athletes in the world have more than one coach who specialise in different areas of expertise. Personal performance coaching can compliment and enhance other forms of coaching and training and often provides the aspect of performance improvement that is missing, and arguably the most important and effective.

Focus Your Performance can work separately to your existing coach(es) or integrate to work with them.

See the testimonials around the site for what current and past clients say about Focus Your Performance and personal performance coaching.

It’s understandable that those closest to you can be protective. They likely invest a lot of time and effort in you and may be naturally cautious of anything new in the fear that it could have a negative or contradicting effect on their work.

Focus Your Performance doesn’t aim to contradict anything your coach is working on with you. Quite the opposite - Focus Your Performance respects the skills of other experts. Personal performance coaching will challenge you to bring out the best in yourself by raising your awareness and responsibility towards what you do. In doing this it can also improve the effectiveness of your work with other professionals, if that’s what you want.

Most of the very best athletes in the world have more than one coach. They have a team, who each specialise in different areas, to help improve their performance. Focus Your Performance can work alongside your existing team or coach, or in isolation with you.

If you think you’d like to work with Focus Your Performance and your coach or manager isn’t sure (or even opposed to the idea!), ask them to get in touch to discuss how Personal Performance Coaching and NLP can compliment their work with you, and ultimately contribute to your success.

Of course all coaching communications are confidential so if you’d just like an informal chat to discus this further please get in touch yourself.

No, not only has Focus Your Performance worked successfully with sports as hobbies and general fitness goals, but also successfully with a number of clients in other areas of life and business. Perhaps you’d like help with motivation to exercise or lose weight? Perhaps you want to work towards that promotion you deserve?

If you’re not sure whether Focus Your Performance can help you, please get in touch for an informal and confidential discussion about your situation.

• There could be a desire to accelerate results
• There could be a gap in skills, confidence, knowledge or resources required
• There could be a lack of clarity and there are choices to be made
• There could be something at stake (a challenge or opportunity)
• The professional life and personal life could be out of balance, creating unwanted consequences

Coaching is best face-to-face, but it is also common for sessions to take place by phone or Skype if meeting face-to-face isn’t practical.

The HQ in Alton provides a dedicated consultation and training room in an environment away from your regular place of work or home life, that enables you to focus on coaching without external distraction.

Focus Your Performance also recognises that there’s nothing like your own environment and can be with you for sessions at home, in training, or place of work if that’s what you’d prefer.

Focus Your Performance can be flexible in location and will offer coaching however it suits you best.

Typically a coaching session lasts around 45 minutes, although some clients prefer 30 minutes and some 90 minutes. It depends what is going to work best for you.

An initial consultation usually lasts around 90 minutes and following an assessment of your requirements a Coaching Agreement is drafted to confirm the length and location of sessions that will suit you best.

Focus Your Performance was born from a love of sport and hard-working, open-minded people, so coming to support you and work closely with you to improve your performance is the ultimate dream. However, the level of involvement that you’d like from Focus Your Performance is completely up to you.

Some clients prefer a weekly coaching session, some monthly, and sometimes it’s somewhere in between! Following the initial consultation a Coaching Agreement is drafted and will schedule whatever frequency of sessions will suit you best.

Factors that may impact the length of a coaching partnership include; the types of goals, the way you like to work, the frequency of coaching sessions, and financial resources available. For some clients, 3 to 6 months of coaching is enough. Others find it beneficial to work for a longer period together and more closely.

Between scheduled coaching sessions, you may be offered exercises, relevant articles, checklists, assessments, specific actions or models to support your thinking, progress and actions, although this is completely up to you if you want this included.

Phone, Skype or email support is also available between sessions depending on the agreed involvement level.

Please get in touch to discuss your requirements.

The success of coaching can be measured in two distinct ways. Firstly, there are the external indicators of performance, that is, measures in your environment. Examples of external measures include:

• The achievement of goals established at the outset and throughout the coaching relationship
• Trophies, medals, win bonuses
• Faster times, personal bests
• Increased income/revenue
• Increased sponsorship, contracts or endorsements
• Being selected for a team
• Obtaining a promotion
• Performance feedback obtained from those in your team, colleagues, clients or managers
• Other personal and/or business performance data (e.g., productivity, efficiency measures)

The external measures selected should ideally be things you are already measuring. However coaching can be used to set and develop new goals to measure success in the future.

Secondly, there are internal indicators of performance. Measures which are inherent within you. Examples of internal measures include:

• Self-scoring assessments. These can be done at regular intervals and/or at predetermined points in the coaching relationship
• Changes in your self-awareness and awareness of others
• Shifts in thinking which inform more effective actions
• Shifts in your emotional state to inspire confidence

Ideally both external and internal measures are incorporated in the coaching partnership.

Absolutely, yes. The contents of all coaching sessions as well as the coaching relationship itself, if required, are completely confidential. Before any coaching begins, a Coaching Agreement is signed by both parties that commits to confidentiality. The HQ in Alton offers a dedicated, relaxed and confidential environment for coaching, away from your regular place of work or home life. Coaching sessions can also be by phone, Skype or on location – whichever suits you best.

Following an initial discussion and assessment of your situation, a fully-tailored Coaching Agreement is drafted to ensure you are given the right level of involvement, support, frequency of sessions, contract length, and coaching location to suit you. Fees are dependent on your individual requirements of the above. Please get in touch to discuss your requirements and if possible arrange an initial consultation.

Fees are due on the 1st of the month (in advance) and payment is accepted by bank transfer, cheque, cash or credit & debit cards (an additional 3.5% fee is applicable for card payments). Full terms and conditions are detailed within the Coaching Agreement which is agreed and signed by both parties prior to any coaching.

Within the partnership, the agenda of coaching will always rest with you. You are the expert in your field. It is therefore your role to create the coaching agenda based on personally meaningful goals. The reasons for, and implications of, will be fully explored within the coaching relationship, but it is essential to understand that coaching is not mentoring or advice.

Through coaching you are empowered to explore new thoughts, make your own decisions and take responsibility for your actions. To enable this it is essential that you are willing to be challenged at certain points during coaching. See the Coaching Philosophy page for more information.

Start by summarising what you would expect to accomplish with coaching. If you have a fairly clear idea of the desired outcome, a coaching partnership can be a useful tool for developing a strategy for how to achieve that outcome with greater ease.

Since coaching is a partnership, also ask yourself if you find it valuable to collaborate and to be asked to consider new perspectives. Also ask yourself if you are ready to devote the time and the energy to coaching.

If the answer to these questions is yes, then coaching may be a beneficial way for you to progress.

With regards to age, as long as you’re passionate about progress, open to new ideas and willing to think differently, it doesn’t matter what your age is. Focus Your Performance is CRB checked and has previously worked successfully with minors.

Get in touch now to discuss coaching further.

Yes it is. If you're hard working, committed to making changes, exploring new ideas and techniques, forward thinking, and know what you want to achieve, then you could be that 'type' of person!

Some people are happy to stay where they are, in their comfort zone and on auto-pilot, and that’s perfectly fine if that's what they want. Coaching isn't suitable for everyone and without true commitment coaching cannot be successful.

Unfortunately, there are also common misconceptions of coaching from those who are wary or dismissive of it. Sometimes, through misunderstanding, coaching is incorrectly seen as counselling or therapy, which it is not. See the next FAQ to address these misconceptions.

However, if you do understand what coaching is, want to improve what you’re doing and achieve results faster (and in the context of sports or business it’s unlikely that you don’t!) get in touch.

No. The very best athletes and coaches have coaches themselves.

A common reason for avoiding or discounting coaching is lack of understanding and sometimes an incorrect association with other service professions. It can sometimes be helpful to differentiate coaching using the five D’s:

• A Therapist might work with those who are seen as damaged or dysfunctional in some way as a result of previous trauma/experience which makes their day to day lives very difficult for them
• A Counsellor might work with those who are experiencing significant levels of distress which is impacting on their everyday life
• A Mentor might work with those seeking direction from someone with experience and knowledge in that same area
• A Consultant might work with an individual or group of individuals looking to diagnose the problems they are facing and recommend the solutions to their current challenges
• A Coach works with clients around their desire to move forward and around their goals and aspirations

Focus Your Performance is a Professional Member of ANLP International (Association for Neuro Linguistic Programming) and the AC (Association for Coaching). Certifications, accreditations, testimonials and Code of Ethics are available on request. Please see the company background page for further details of professional coach training and accreditation bodies.

Coaching is currently a self-regulated industry and anyone can claim to be a ‘Coach’. Focus Your Performance is qualified through Europe’s most successful coach training organisation, who are externally accredited by The Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM), CPD Certification Service, Education Development International plc (EDI), The Open College Network and the Association for Neuro Linguistic Programming (ANLP) among others.

Now, Focus Your Performance is a Professional Member of ANLP International, the AC (Association for Coaching), adheres to the ICF (International Coach Federation) Code of Ethics, and committed to continued professional development to ensure a high level of practice.

With a love of sport, hard-working, open-minded people, and first hand experience of the psychological influence on performance, Focus Your Performance is more than just qualified and accredited.

Focus Your Performance has a real desire to improve your personal performance and will work closely with you, not prescribe an ‘off-the-shelf’ service. The entire coaching partnership will be tailored personally for you, with attention to detail and an approach to suit you best.

Hopefully you will spend enough time on the website to read some of the testimonials from previous clients that have worked with Focus Your Performance and further references are available if required.

However, ultimately ccoaching is down to personal choice and requires a high level of rapport. Focus Your Performance offers a free initial consultation to enable us to get to know each other better, and for you to decide whether Focus Your Performance is the ‘right’ choice for you.

Please get in touch to arrange an initial consultation or simply an informal discussion.

Great! Please get in touch.