Life coaching is a collaborative partnership who helps individuals produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. The life coaching process addresses specific personal and professional plans by examining what is going on right now, discovering the obstacles or challenges that might hinder progress, and choosing a course of action to make life satisfying and rewarding.
Through the process of life coaching, clients develop goals, overcome obstacles that have hindered them in the past, and feel more organized and capable of pursuing goals in the future. Clients deepen their awareness resulting in improved performance.
What is Life Coaching?
In general, a life coach most commonly performs the following tasks:
- Assists in defining goals
- Provides structure and inspiration
- Provides a map and directions
- Provides support and encouragement
- Identifies potential roadblocks
- Monitors and validates progress
Some of the Benefits of Life Coaching:
For people who need help moving forward, life coaching can help you:
- Recognize and reach your goals
- Reconnect with your passion and creativity
- Increase your energy and motivation
- Achieve your full potential
- Gain understanding of how your mind works
- Understand and rid yourself of destructive behaviors
- Build stronger and more fulfilling relationships
- Deepen your awareness
How Does Life Coaching work?
When clients feel a sense of personal control and healthy self-esteem, they are capable of achieving much more. Some people don’t know how to approach a goal and formulate an action plan for accomplishing it. A life coach helps clients formulate goals, overcome resistance, and develop the necessary confidence and skills to succeed.
In each meeting, the client chooses the focus of conversation, while the life coach listens and contributes observations and questions. This interaction creates clarity and moves the client into action and accountability. Coaching accelerates the client’s progress by providing greater focus and conscious awareness. Life coaching concentrates on where the client is today, and what they are willing to do to get where they want to go.
Like a sports coach, a personal life coach provides an unbiased outside eye to help you see things more clearly, applies techniques from their training, shares what they’ve learned from their own life experiences. Most of all, the synergy of coaching is of key importance. This refers to the creativity of two minds working together and it is incredibly empowering.
The Life Coaching Experience
The life coaching experience consists of a number of sessions conducted with a combination of in-person sessions, phone sessions, and unlimited email consultations. The coach/client relationship is sculpted to accommodate each individual in his or her unique circumstance, schedule, and desired outcome. In life coaching, we will help you:
- Define and identify problem areas
- Set holistic goals
- Examine roadblocks
- Outline skills and techniques to remove roadblocks
- Evaluate progress
- Explore resistance to change
- Celebrate Success
How Is Life Coaching Different from Counseling and Psychotherapy?
Counseling and psychotherapy are generally more concerned with the client’s past, working to identify and develop insight into the source of maladjustments in life and reframing their outlook to end unhealthy cycles; whereas, life coaching is generally more concerned with the present and future by setting clear goals and going about attaining them.
The advantage of having a life coach who is a licensed mental health professional is that, in the event that a deep rooted mental roadblock is crossed during the process of coaching, you are in capable hands with someone who is trained, experienced, and comfortable in addressing those concerns.