About Toni
Toni McGuinness has been involved in self-development and personal performance since the early 1980s. She developed her coaching career by training in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), becoming an NLP Master Practitioner (with Richard Bandler and Paul McKenna).
She has also qualified in Clinical Hypnosis and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and is a full member of The British Society of Clinical Hypnosis.
Coaching explores and draws out your strengths, guiding you in how to bypass and overcome the barriers that limit you in your home and work life, helping you achieve your personal best. It is a focused way of improving specific areas of your life by guiding and developing your behaviour, capacity and potential, using careful observation and feedback.
In the past there were specific coaches for specific issues, e.g. voice coach, public speaking coach, acting coach all providing guidance in particular situations. Recently however, coaching has expanded its precept, and taken a more generalised direction and meaning. It can now provide guidance and support on various levels, behaviour, capability, potential, values, beliefs, self knowledge and even a spiritual dimension, as well as all the specific issues mentioned before; so that you can achieve well formed outcomes on a number of levels.
An effective coaching partnership will begin with the coach learning as much as she can, about the personal and work life of her client, exploring and developing the specific outcomes the client is hoping to achieve. Over a period of weeks and months the coach and client discuss, explore and work through any emotional and behavioural obstacles, as well as investigating new areas of learning in order to achieve the client's goals.
There are various types of coaching available, Project, Situational and Transitional Coaching. Project Coaching covers team management, usually in a business context, to achieve the most effective result. Situational coaching will enhance your performance in specific area e.g. public speaking, stress management. Transitional Coaching, guides you through changes in your life, e.g. career, lifestyle and even personal development.
In a business context coaching can be seen to improve an organisation's performance through the personal development of employees at all levels, by creating unified teams, collectively aligned towards the goals and ideals of the organisation. This can be developed through team coaching or business consulting on an individual basis. Some of the issues dealt with by an executive coach will be; setting expectations, communication, time management, stress management, improving working relations, work/life balance and many more.
Life Coaching for you as an individual, involves guiding you to achieve your personal life and career goals. It is similar to transitional coaching and will involve guiding you to deal effectively and directly with the issues and obstacles that you are confronted with, as you make the desired changes to your life. Sometimes people visit a life coach in an exploratory way, to enhance the spiritual side of their life.
Coaching is aligned with guiding you to achieve the outcomes you want on all levels by exploring the context in which you live, learning and refining your values and strengthening your identity so that you learn how to bring your dreams into reality.
As a coach I work with you, listening to what you say and don't say, and questioning you, to help you realise what is most important to you so as to help you find the solutions best suited to you. After all, you are the one who knows best for you! As you become aware of your innate well being in the process of achieving a specific goal, you may find that the ripples extend into other areas of your life resolving other issues, without your specific attention.
Life coaching is about achieving results, using the power of commitment to enable you, the client, to achieve beneficial, sustainable and measurable results in all areas of your life; an all encompassing process that has the power to balance and harmonise other areas of your life.
