WHAT IS LIFE COACHING?

A life coach is a trained professional whose aim is to help and guide individuals like yourself to make, meet, and exceed their goals, both personal and professional. We support clients on a journey to rediscover their own strengths and abilities. This can include excelling in the workplace, creating a happy and fulfilling home life, exploring your potential, managing health conditions, and achieving life ambitions. Those aren’t the only areas where coaching can help; a life coach can help guide you in many ways depending on your needs.

By harnessing techniques based on core psychological principles and intuition, coaches empower clients and provide them with a toolkit of teachings to confidently face challenges and overcome barriers. Different coaches often have different skill sets, and each one of us uses a unique approach to match our client’s needs.

At the heart of it all lies the idea that clients must be given the power to help themselves. A coach won’t tell you what to do. Instead, we will use questioning techniques to help you uncover the answers yourself. We will also provide an objective and empowering environment for you to explore your goals and any challenges you’re facing. Offering advice, opinions, or judgments would undermine some of the basic principles behind life coaching. Instead, the answers must come from you, with your coach as a guide.

WHAT HAPPENS DURING A SESSION?

Coaching sessions typically last between 30 and 60 minutes, depending on the coach you choose. Often, after the initial assessment, sessions can be conducted face-to-face or virtually, including over phone, email, or video calls.

During the session, your coach will ask you some questions, such as what you want to achieve in life, what areas you’re unhappy with, and where you’d like to see yourself in the future. Although coaches work with you, it will often be up to you to challenge or reflect upon the ideas you have to help you move forward in your life. You will never be forced to make decisions you don’t feel comfortable with, as this is all about you. Your sessions will be fully confidential, allowing you to explore your thoughts and feelings in a private safe space.

Coaching is best seen as a partnership between you and your coach. They will gently encourage you to explore how to make positive changes in your life, based on your aspirations. A coach should also offer support and feedback to help you stay focused on your goals. Occasionally, they may help you set tasks and objectives (homework) to work on outside of sessions.

Many coaches also use tools to help their clients, including workbooks, diagrams, roadmaps, meditation, or other exercises. These tools are often unique for each coach, and some coaches create or modify their own.

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ARE THERE DIFFERENT TYPES OF COACHING?

There are many coaching styles used to address different situations and to direct a coaching session. A coach will assess each individual and determine the right coaching style, depending on the client’s goals and how they wish to achieve those.

Here are a few examples of different coaching styles:

Solution-focused coaching

Solution-focused coaching is concerned with a client’s end goal. A coach using this approach will question a client about their goal in order to clarify their vision. What is it you really want? How are you going to get there? What happens once you do get there?

Solution-focused coaching encourages:

  1. Introspection
  2. Self-evaluation
  3. Clear goal setting (often with SMART goals)
  4. A richer understanding of your own unique path in life.

 

Setting clear goals and focusing on solutions can be very useful in business coaching, especially for entrepreneurs. It can also work well for clients trying to develop themselves personally as it encourages self-evaluation.

Intuitive coaching

This type of coaching aims to help you access and develop your intuition. It follows the principles and teachings of traditional life coaching, such as setting goals, creating action plans, and working on habits and beliefs.

Unlike traditional coaching, though, the client is guided in a more spiritual and introspective way. Intuitive coaching enables you to confront and answer some of life’s primary questions:

  1. Why am I here?
  2. What do I want to become, as a human, during my life?
  3. What do I want to create?

Mindset coaching

The aim of mindset coaching is to help you uncover any limiting beliefs, blocks, behaviors, or thought patterns that may be holding you back. Building awareness around these is the first step to changing them. Once they are revealed, a mindset coach can use different techniques to help you reprogram your thoughts, remove mental blocks, and replace beliefs with something that will better serve you and your goals.

Many coaches consider and work with mindset in their practice, even if they’re not described as a mindset coach. If this is something you’re specifically seeking, but a coach you’re interested in doesn’t mention it, don’t hesitate to ask if this is an area they can help you with.

COACHING OR COUNSELING?

Coaching focuses more on the here and now of the client and conducts sessions with the future as the central point. Coaches encourage personal development and self-improvement. Counseling is a form of talk therapy that deals with assessing the individual in the here and now, but also working to determine how past events have contributed to the client’s current struggles. A counselor will help clients develop coping mechanisms and strategies to move forward with their life. In short: coaches are focused more on personal development, while counselors focus more on coping strategies and getting to the root of mental health issues.

The main difference between counseling and coaching is that counselors can investigate the underlying causes of mental health problems. They are trained and qualified to treat, and often diagnose, mental health issues. Coaches are not (unless specified) qualified to diagnose or treat any health-related problems. If the situation arises, a coach may suggest you see a general practitioner, but can not treat your health problems themselves.

Coaches utilize techniques to help their clients in all aspects of life. If you’re struggling with anything from moving out of your comfort zone to improving your confidence to starting healthy habits, then consulting a life coach could help you.

A life coach will help you approach things pragmatically. Through questions and exercises, they will try to get an idea of how you perceive the world. From this, they will be able to help you identify the most effective route to your goal. Some people feel intimidated by the idea of change and need to take things slowly to fulfill their goals. In this situation, a coach might divide goals into smaller, bite-sized pieces. Other people may get impatient and lose interest, in which case a coach may suggest introducing stronger reminders and incentives to keep them on track.

However you approach life, your coach will be able to tailor your sessions to fit your needs. Subjects that coaches often deal with include:

  • Relationships: Do you wish you had the confidence to approach someone you like romantically? Do you struggle with commitment? Are you struggling to cope with a divorce? A coach can help you understand your love life and work toward improving it.
  • Business life: Starting and running a business is tough work. Sometimes we get so absorbed in it, we neglect ourselves. Coaches can help you build confidence, develop leadership skills, enhance decision-making abilities, and assess your work/life balance to help you be both successful and happy.
  • Personal life: Do you feel like you’re not making the most of life? There’s so much to see, learn, and do in this world, but we often lack the confidence, time, or willpower to step outside our comfort zones. Life coaches use their skills to motivate clients to do the things they want to do, so you can finally fight the urge to procrastinate and take more control of your life.
  • Performance: Improvement is at the heart of life coaching. Whatever your skill, coaching can help improve it. Whether you’re an athlete, artist, writer, performer, musician, businesswoman— a life coach will use their special techniques to help you push your limitations and exceed expectations.

 


More Resources
https://www.thepriorityacademy.com/ https://www.lifecoachdirectory.org.uk/content/industryfaqs.html#lifecoachvsbusinesscoach https://www.tonyrobbins.com/coaching/results-life-coach/

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES / FAQ

CAN I BOOK AN INTAKE SESSION?
Yes. I schedule free 30-minute consultation to make sure there is a good fit.

DO YOU WORK INTERNATIONALLY?
Yes. I use Zoom, WhatsApp, google, FB Messenger.

WHAT LANGUAGES DO YOU SPEAK?
English, French, Lingala, Tshiluba, Kikongo, Spanish (reading only)