What is Life Coaching and Who is a Life Coach?

What is Life Coaching?       

Life Coaching is coaching to take you from where you are today to where you want to be in future with actionable plans and accountability building. It isn’t about some self-proclaimed guru telling you how you should live. Changes are temporary unless they originate from deep inside you. True life coaching allows you to access your inner guru at any time and from any place, with or without the assistance of another human being. It isn’t about instructing you more than it is about empowering you to lead your own life.

To put it simply the life coaching process is a deep and meaningful conversation that inspires you to create your desired life.

Life coaching is very broad unlike executive coaching or leadership coaching which prioritise professional life over other aspects. For example, the goals of life coaching can help you:

• Understand why you act in the way that you do.
• Know which beliefs about yourself stop you from taking certain actions.
• Know what option you have to improve your life.
• How you can best go about getting the right results for you.
• How you can maintain your motivation.

Coaching discussions leave you feeling inspired, energised, and ready to act. Life coaching is more than just motivating you to live the life you want. Oftentimes, the greatest experience of life comes from facing up to the aspects of it that you despise and learning the lessons contained therein. Coaching discussions assist you in determining the ideal way to live your life, the one that maximizes your potential and strengthens you.

Coaching is a highly effective method ..

of assisting you in identifying and achieving your goals. Perhaps you’re looking for a certain result or set of results from coaching, such as the desire to:

• Change your job or embark on a new career
• Establish your own business
• Improve a personal relationship
• Get fit and healthy
• Become a non-smoker
• Increase your wealth
• Become more self-confident
  
  

The list could continue indefinitely. Through coaching, you can address any tangible aspect of your life that you wish to change or improve. If you have a lengthy list of objectives, prioritise them according to your priority scale, as you cannot do everything at once. Coaching can also assist you in determining these priorities – and what you believe is the most compelling issue may turn out to be somewhat less significant after coaching has shone a light on it.

What Life Coaching is NOT?         
While life coaching can mean asking powerful questions which are aimed at improving certain aspects or the whole of your life, there are some things that you should not expect from it:       
           
1. Coaching is not counselling or therapy 
Therapy or counselling look for only a certain disorder or unwanted mental orientation. Coaching is whereas, related to changing your behavior, motivation, mindset to achieve life-long success and stability with a clear set of actionable goals. 
While many treatments are strongly grounded in the current moment and forward motion, they place a greater emphasis on comprehending what went wrong and gaining acceptance to move ahead. Coaching instead aims at empowering you to achieve the life you want.         

2. Coaching is not mentoring          
Mentoring is about formal training, teaching, passing on skills and wisdom. Coaching is, however, aimed at drawing out your inner resources to build capacity to help you achieve the life you want. Moreover, a mentor helps you to develop only one aspect of your life such as health, skills, personal finance etc. Whereas coaching takes your whole life and your goals into account.

3. Coaching is not giving advise     
A coach doesn’t give you advice. A coach may discuss and suggest options for you, but essentially coaching facilitates your thought processes. The intention is to help you develop your potential for achieving your life goals. This cannot be done by passing on advice, but only by coaching. Who is a Life Coach?          
A life coach has a thorough knowledge of the principles of long-term success and its execution. He/She demonstrates to others how they may use these ideas in their professional or personal lives. Additionally, life coaches may assist clients in overcoming stress and anxiety.

Consider yourself trapped in a job you despise. You lack sufficient funds to get you through a career change. In this scenario, a coach assists you in determining the industry in which you would thrive and how it aligns with your life mission. Once you and your coach have identified an industry in which you want to work, he or she will assist you in choosing a career path and developing a plan of action for making the transition. This is just one example of how a coach can help you. Other are as follows:      

• Gain clarity in your purpose – Get clear and focused on the goals and objectives that will radically change your life.
• Achieve health and fitness goals – Increase your energy, vigour, and accountability with a coach who challenges you. Remain dedicated to achieving tangible outcomes and begin living the life you want.
• Improve your relationships – Eliminate misconceptions that are preventing genuine connection and learn the solution to relationship fulfilment. Learn how to overcome self- and partner-limiting thoughts.
• Leadership Development – Break through barriers and develop the ability to convince, inspire, and connect with people.
• Fortitude Building – Develop the bravery, strength, enthusiasm, and confidence necessary to face any obstacle or unexpected shift that life may throw your way.
• Develop your business – Commit during uncertain times and push yourself out of your comfort zone to increase sales and profits.

What are the traits of the Best Life Coach ?    

1. Non-Judgmental
A coach needs to be open-minded, proactive and should not hold pre-conceived opinions for the client. He/She needs to investigate all aspects of the client without any bias.

2. Ability to ask powerful questions
Coaching is mostly the questions which coach raises. A successful coach would ask questions that would bring clarity to the client and his/her life which creates impact.
                       
3. Extremely Caring
The coach needs to treat his/her client with full responsibility and care to solve his/her problems and not be driven by other motivations such as the need for money, fame etc.

4. Ability to provide new perspectives       
The coach needs to be creative and able to think outside the box to provide new solutions, plans, feedback etc. to the client.

5. Be challenging
A coach challenges clients in a way that causes them to face the reality surrounding them with clarity, focus, and honesty.

6. Is a great listener
A great coach will always listen deeply and contribute to the conversation. He/she will not jump onto conclusions without deeply understanding the client’s situation.

7. Honest
The coach needs to be honest with the conversation. He/She needs to put the client before everything else. An honest coach will act in a way which benefits the client, provide solutions, map out an agenda to achieve life goals etc.

The Conclusion        
Few individuals can confidently state that they are already operating at their peak level on a daily basis. If you are ready to truly maximize your human potential, and take your life to the next level, then it’s time to seek out a life coach.