True change and achievement requires work and self-discipline on your part. You need to build new habits, stay on track, and remain accountable to your vision of excellence. Once you make a strong commitment to the “new you”, hiring the right business coach can accelerate your growth. A good business coach brings real-world experience and is a resource for new ideas. A strong coach will encourage you, challenge you and hold you accountable to your commitments. The coaching relationships are viewed as a partnership where the coach is seen as a trusted advisor.

Here are three ways to boost your success with a business coach:

1. Get To The Heart Of Your Challenges
You may have to dig deep first to get to the root of challenges you’re facing. Of course, it’s always easier to talk about the good stuff with a coach. But it can be tougher to share what’s gone wrong, admit mistakes or talk about problems. Being candid and honest provides your coach with valuable information about where you’re at and where you need to go. It will result in getting to the issues quickly and accelerate your growth.

2. Keep Your Commitments
No one is perfect. And everyone is busy. But understandable excuses aside, when you come away from accountability sessions with your business coach, it’s important to honor any commitments you’ve made. This could be checking in regularly, providing progress reports to your coach so you can receive valuable feedback or help. Or it could be honoring meeting dates and times, showing up promptly and not rescheduling (outside of emergency or highly unusual situations). Finally, whatever ground rules set between you and your business coach, make sure you’re upholding those. This will help ensure clear expectations get met and a sense of mutual respect is kept.

3. Keep An Open Mind About Feedback
When you’re receiving feedback, you need to remain open to it. Obviously, no one wants to hear bad news about their leadership performance or activities, but sometimes even the worst news can become a valuable lesson learned—something you need to hear and will eventually appreciate. That said, while some leaders may react defensively when being coached by a professional consultant, this reactive behavior can be a real stumbling block for progress. So strive to drop any defensives and keep an open mind about the role and value of feedback. Try not to take the information personally but for what it likely will be: something you really need to hear!

What helps you to be more receptive to feedback from your business coach?