Coaching for Accountability

One concern that often holds newer editors back from offering coaching to writers is that they don’t know everything. But that shouldn’t stop you from dipping your toe into the coaching waters!

Coaching for Accountability

Coaching for accountability is a great fit for coaches working with writers, even new coaches.

However, if you’re new at coaching, you might be concerned that you don’t know everything and may not be able to answer every question a coaching client may have. And of course, that’s true! No one knows everything.

But as I described in this post, coaching isn’t so much about dumping your knowledge into another person’s head as it is about guiding them in solving their own challenges.

Of course it’s true that writers will sometimes come to us to, say, unsnarl a complicated problem with perspective, and if you’re still a little wobbly about how that works, you won’t add much value.

The solution is to limit what you coach at first. No one expects every coach to be able to solve every possible writing problem they have.

Tips for Accountability Coaching

One of the areas that I recommend exploring if you’re a new coach is coaching for accountability. Writers want to write but they have many demands on their time (day job, children) and many distractions (streaming, Facebook).

Working with an accountability partner is a tried-and-true way to solve this problem.

But, you may ask, why would anyone pay you for this when they could ask a friend or join some online group (as surely there is an online group for this)?

The answer is that spending money signals the importance of whatever it is you’re purchasing. If a writer spends money to hire an accountability coach, they are more likely to stick with it because otherwise it will have been a big, fat waste of money.

People know this intuitively. They also know that a friend may not actually hold them accountable. Part of this process is helping authors solve their barriers, not just accepting their excuses for not doing the work.

We also know that mirroring is a great way for ADHD individuals to focus. This means that if they work in the presence of another person (this can be online), they’ll be more productive. So, one way to offer accountability is just to have work sessions. The author pays for them ahead of time (so that they don’t get into the habit of canceling/rescheduling) and you both just work on your projects.

Or you can do weekly check-ins by videoconference, email, or text. The client sets their goals for the week and you check in at predetermined times to ensure they’re staying on target and to help them solve challenges that arise.

Building Your Coaching Skills

You can probably also imagine other more narrowly defined types of coaching you could do as you first start out. Maybe you’re very good at productivity. You could coach on that. Maybe you’re excellent at the technical aspects of self-publishing. You could coach that.

Don’t let “I don’t know everything!” hold you back from adding coaching to your menu of services!

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