What is a Life Coach?
When I tell people I’m a Life Coach they all give a positive response but there is also a vagueness about what a Life Coach actually is. Interestingly nobody actually asks what it really involves, they just give a positive, noncommittal answer such as “oh, okay - how long have you been doing that?”
If you are struggling to understand what a Life Coach is, this is my summary for you. 😉
What is a Life Coach?
A Life Coach is someone who has been trained to help you to achieve the potential that lies within you. They support, encourage, guide, question and facilitate to help you to identify your goals (no matter how small or big they may be) and work towards those to become the person you really want to be. Life Coaches are trained to ask deep questions that will help you to uncover or discover the answers for yourself - often answers you didn’t know were there. A Life Coach is not there to advise you or tell you what to do. We help you to question and explore so that you find the answers from within.
Difference between a Life Coach and a Counsellor
A Life Coach helps to take you from the present day to where you want to be in the future. A Counsellor or Therapist looks at the past and helps people to work through trauma, mental health issues, and healing from past wounds, events or unresolved issues that are causing problems in the present. So, in short, a Life Coach looks from the present to the future, and a Counsellor looks from the past to the present (but obviously that affects your future too).
What types of coaches are there?
We all understand what a sport coach does, or a personal trainer at the gym. They help a team or an individual to become the best they can be through guiding, supporting, encouraging, and helping to set goals so that the team or the individual have a direction and a purpose. In other words something to aim for.
A Life Coach does the same but on an individual level where it’s more about you and what you want in your personal life. Life Coaching can cover all areas of your life - for example, relationships, health, wellbeing, financial, career, business - and there are coaches who specialise in different all those different areas. In relationships for instance, there are divorce coaches, break up coaches, and coaches who specialise in empowering people (particularly women) to live life on their own terms. In health and wellbeing you can find coaches who specialise in mindset, others who specialise in menstrual cycles, motherhood, or finding happiness within your own body. Basically, there’s pretty much a coach for anything.
Why would you use a Life Coach?
Coaches help you to become unstuck, to move ahead or to make changes or transitions that are difficult to do on your own. We are your biggest supporter and cheerleader, encouraging you every step of the way, gently holding you accountable to keep you moving forward. And it’s the accountability part that really helps to make a difference. It’s easy to think you could do this on your own, and some people definitely can. But for others, if there’s no-one to hold you accountable, it’s easy to put things off for another day, another week or another month. Which means you never get started, or just keep going round and round in circles.
A Coach helps you to dig deep and find the answers. Often you won’t ask yourself the hard questions that will bring those solutions to light. Or you simply can’t see the wood for the trees, and having an outside person reflect what they are seeing and hearing can be incredibly illuminating. It helps you to see things from a different perspective.
Who is Life Coaching aimed at?
Everyone! Every single person could benefit from having someone on their side to support, guide and encourage as they move through the various stages of their lives. Life Coaching is not for the privileged or successful. It is there to support every single person on their journey, no matter what that journey is. It is for everyday people dealing with every day things but wanting to unlock their potential and be the best they can be. Whether that is wanting to be the best possible mother to your children, finding your mojo again, or becoming a successful entrepreneur, Life Coaching is for everyone.
Is it expensive?
That depends on who you go to and what you are wanting to achieve. If you are wanting a coach that specialises in marketing or business growth, you may find that the really successful coaches are quite expensive. However there are many, many coaches who offer superb guidance and support for less than you would spend on a new outfit or handbag. For me, the investment in yourself has much greater and longer term benefits. Your health, wellbeing and long term happiness are so important and yet we often don’t invest in these areas.
But I don’t like setting goals…
I hear you! Neither do I, and I’ve realised that is because the goals we’ve been ‘taught’ in the past have been very masculine oriented. They were action based and time bound but actually didn’t make me feel that great. In fact, they felt like hard work, often made me feel pressured and like I’d failed if I didn’t achieve the goal. That’s absolutely no fun and I tended to avoid goal setting like the plague.
This is where heart centred goals come in
The practice I use in my coaching is based around heart centred goals. This means they are goals that come from you and have real meaning for you, and they are based on feelings. There’s usually a feeling that we are trying to achieve that is encouraging us to take action, and a heart centred goal focuses on that feeling rather than the action required.
Let’s look at an example. Let’s say I want to lose 5 kg. A masculine, action based goal would be “to lose 5 kilos by the 5th September”. On the surface that looks great. It’s clear, it’s time bound, and it’s quite possibly achievable. But it’s not very exciting. I don’t know about you, but that goal leaves me absolutely flat. There is no joy in it, no fun or enthusiasm.
If we look at the why of the goal, that can help. Basically, in my theoretical example of losing weight, the reason I want to lose weight is to feel better about myself. I want to feel amazing in my body. When we look at it like that, sometimes it’s not about losing weight, it can be about changing the way we view ourselves. So the goal here might be “feel the most sexy, vibrant and radiant I’ve ever felt”, or “feel healthy, strong and flexible”. It could simply be “love my body in whatever shape it is”. These are much more powerful and meaningful goals and actually feel much more exciting and motivating. And if you lose 5 kg along the way, that’s a bonus!
How long do you have coaching for?
That varies on the coach that you are interested in working with. I have two options for clients to choose from.
The first option is a three month coaching series, where we meet once every fortnight over that time frame. That means I see the client 6 times in the three month coaching series.
The second option is a six month coaching series. Again, we meet once a fortnight for six months, which means I see the client for 12 sessions during that time. This is great for those bigger goals that are going to take longer to achieve
Do you have to meet in person?
The short answer is no. In my practice I tend to work via Zoom, which means clients don’t need to worry about traveling time, traffic and parking which can become very stressful. It’s easy to simply log in from home, or book a meeting room at work and have our session. It also means it doesn’t matter where you are in the world, we can still meet.
Some people like to have the face to face contact and an appropriate meeting point can be agreed when booking the sessions.
How do you know the Coach is the right person for you?
Coaching is all about relationships and it’s important that you and your coach work well together. That’s where the free 30 minute consult comes in. We get together and have a chat to see if we are right for each other. If either party feels like they are not a good fit, there is no need to move forward with a coaching series. There is absolutely no obligation with a discovery call and you can simply leave it at that if you wish to. If you both hit it off though, the free 30 minute consult has given you a great starting point on which to build your coaching series.
What if I’m not clear what I want?
Often we get to a point in life where we know that we want something to change but we don’t know what. We are not happy where our career, our relationship, or maybe want some sort of personal transformation, but don’t know where to start. We just know that something is ‘off’. Something is not right, and it needs to change.
That’s where your Coach shows their true value. Your Coach will help you to identify the areas that you want to change or improve through deep questioning, and then help you to build goals around that so that you can begin working towards them.
How do I find a coach?
You can usually find a Life Coach by Googling Life Coaches in your area. I trained through the Beautiful You Coaching Academy and they have a fabulous website full of wonderful coaches to choose from. You can find out more about individual coaches here: Beautiful You Coaching Academy
I would strongly recommend that you think about working with a Life Coach if you are feeling lost, rudderless, directionless, or feeling like your life doesn’t have the meaning or purpose that it once had. If there is a feeling of discontent or wanting change but not knowing what or where to start, that’s the perfect time to think about working with a Life Coach. Take your time and pick someone who you feel comfortable with. You’ll find it’s a rewarding and fun experience that can transform your life.
Karen
