Today is a day of celebration! After three years of practising and growing as a coach, having overcome a variety of delays and roadblocks, I finally took the plunge; I applied for the ACC certification, and I passed!
(Photo of a small section of the vision board I have on my bedroom wall. The idea is to put up images that help you visualise your goals and get closer to them.)
The Associate Certified Coach (ACC) credential is the first certification level from the International Coaching Federation (ICF). the best known and most widely extended coaching institution in the world. A fundamental part of ICF´s work consists of establishing quality standards and a code of ethics for the coaching profession, which is currently not regulated, and that can easily be confused with other help professions, like consulting, mentoring or psychotherapy.
The certification requirements include a certain number of hours of training, hours of mentoring and practice hours doing coaching sessions, as well as passing an exam. And now I understand why: all of those elements complement each other, combining theory and practice, action and reflection, for a much more comprehensive learning experience.
I know this is just another step along the way, but for me, it´s a tremendously important step, for two reasons:
- First, because this allows me to prove to the world that I take coaching very seriously, and that I´m aligned with the highest standards and code of ethics of this profession. Now I can guarantee a level of quality in my service, with objective criteria to back it up.
- Y segundo, porque de paso también me demuestro a mí misma que, efectivamente, estoy haciendo las cosas bien, lo cual me da aún más tranquilidad y confianza. Y digo bien, que no perfectas…
Thanks a million to D´Arte Human & Business School for the training that started it all (my dear 15th), to Stephen Clements for being an extraordinary mentor, to all the coachees I´ve had the privilege of working with, inside and outside of Fidelity, and to ExpertCoach for their exam preparation materials.
De momento, ¡prueba superada! Pero la aventura continúa, esto no se acaba nunca…