In its simplest form, life coaching is a relationship between two people, the coach and the client. A coach may also work with a group of people, as in the case of corporate coaching. The purpose of working with a personal coach is to maximise your potential. Is there some area of your life, be it personal or professional, that you’re looking to change?
A personal coach will work with you 1:1 to identify your specific goals, strengths and
areas of opportunity. As you develop a relationship with your coach, they will gain a deeper understanding of what course of action best suits your goals, personality and strengths. As a result, your personal coach can provide you with proven strategies and customised plans to help you get the results you’re after. If you wanted to be the best soccer player in the world, you’d never try without a great coach, and real life is far more demanding than soccer! That’s why a personal coach is so essential to transforming your dreams into reality.
Many of the most successful athletes, celebrities, CEOs, executives, entrepreneurs and even politicians use personal coaching to better themselves and further their careers. These ambitious people already know that success is something that is never static; no matter how much success you have already achieved, you always have the potential to achieve so much more. Whether you’ve hit a plateau or are simply unsure of how to move forward, a personal coach can help you take your life to the next level.
Ask any coach and they will tell you this:
Coaching is a conversation like no other.
A life coach's job—whether they're executive coaches, relationship coaches, business coaches, you name it—is to help their clients overcome fear and self-doubt.
They help clients set meaningful goals so they can create a life on their terms.
A life coach can help the client get from where they are to where they want to be much more rapidly.
This can be done in several ways:
Through removing the client from the stories they tell themselves
By helping them disassociate with the reasons they 'can’t'
By helping them set and look forward to achieving new goals
By helping them to create empowering beliefs and attitudes
A coach is open to change and is ready to listen to the client—not just that, but is also genuinely curious and cares about the client's well-being. A coach usually wants to constantly improve and use all the resources available to help the client. A coach is always ready to take risks and stretch outside the comfort zone.
A LITTLE LIFE COACHING HISTORY
Until the late 1980s, there were some people who'd go to see either a psychotherapist or an analyst to help them overcome a specific problem such as giving up smoking or beating depression. It was soon discovered that a lot of these 'patients' didn’t have a 'condition'—they just felt that their lives were a little off balance. Some therapists started to deal solely with these clients and this branched off into a new industry known as life coaching. Last year, it was estimated there are 100,000 life coaches around the world, with reports in 2018 that the US personal coaching industry alone was worth US$1 billion. The demand for coaches is ever-rising, and taking the industry online since COVID-19 means coaches can now have clients anywhere in the world. As a coach, your clients seek your help in areas such as goal-setting, getting better results, understanding what they really want, aiming for a more fulfilled, richer life among other things. But let's address the elephant in the room. Does coaching really work? Let me put it this way, if it didn't, there would be no coaches, and the industry would be shrinking instead of growing. Simple logic, yes?
IS COACHING THE SAME AS THERAPY, COUNSELLING AND MENTORING?
Most coaches get asked this a lot: “Isn’t coaching really like therapy or counselling, or even mentoring?”
The short answer? Nope.
Let me explain why. Patients seeking therapy and/or counselling usually have a problem arising from a specific incident, condition or trauma.
A coaching client usually has no experience of these. Many clients are successful, fulfilled people already and they are now looking to raise the bar, experience even more success and become more effective at what they already do well.
A therapist or counsellor usually starts with the client’s past to find the solution to an existing condition. A coach, on the other hand, draws a line in the sand and starts with the present and the future.
Mentoring has similarities to coaching but there is a fundamental difference. A mentor is experienced in a particular area and knows the answers. Think of a mentor as a teacher and a coach as a guide.
WHO WORKS WITH COACHES?
Why have so many already successful people turned to working with a personal coach? Because anyone who has reached a major pinnacle of success, be it in business, athletics or politics, knows that no one, no matter how talented and powerful they may seem, finds true success alone. They know that mentors, coaches and supporters are essential to achieving the best results, and this is what a personal coach does.
Successful people work with personal coaches because they want more – be it from their career, personal relationships or life in general – they know they have the power to get it and they want to use every tool they have at their disposal to achieve it. They want help setting and achieving goals, planning strategically, removing mental blocks, taking control of financial matters, communicating effectively and maintaining a work-life balance.
Once you start to work with your personal coach, you will learn to take effective action and focus your efforts on what really matters. You will stop getting stuck on roadblocks and shed your hang-ups about the past. And you will enjoy more energy and a more freeing schedule, even as you achieve more than you ever had before.
Don’t buy into the outdated idea that if you simply work hard enough and long enough you should be able to succeed in going through it alone. It’s just not true! Use the talents and skills of an objective, empowering, focused “friend” who shares your goals to help you take your life to the next level: this is exactly what a personal coach does.
Define your vision, set new and more challenging goals, and create an action plan with your personal coach and achieve extraordinary results. Sign up for your complimentary 15-minute coaching consultation session today, and prepare to experience the success you’ve previously only dreamed of.
