Life coaching gives you the opportunity to step back and take a look at your life, allowing focused time out to analyse your motivations and dreams, tuning into the possibilities and defining action plans for direction in life, with accountability to your life coach (see more on Bex).
As a coach, I believe that you have all the necessary intelligence, creativity and drive to move forward and succeed, but that you may require help in accessing it.
What’s the difference between life coaching, mentoring and counselling/other therapies?
- A mentor is an expert/more experienced in the field that they are giving you advice on.
- Counselling and therapy tend to focus on a person’s past, and are often associated with a traumatic event, e.g. redundancy, long-term stress, lack of confidence in ones abilities.
- Coaching focuses on your future and moving you from where you are now to where you want to be. It gives you the tools and support on how to get there. It particularly focuses on action planning, as without concrete goals, we have nothing to move forward to.
Sometimes mentoring or counselling may be more appropriate, in which case the initial (or later) sessions with a coach will help identify this.
What are the benefits of coaching?
- We identify and use the potential that already exists within you and find a way forward.
- We clarify your dreams and passion.
- We can look at your work-life balance, and move towards work-life integration.
- We can identify what is stopping you moving forward.
- We can give you the right tools, and I will provide support and belief in you to get you there
What does the coach contribute?
- Our sessions allow you the space to talk through options and possibilities. Careful prompting can start the process of unravelling the ‘tangled ball of wool’ in your head. With friends, however well-intentioned, there is the possibility of hidden agendas, and the danger that they will get bored.
- Some friendships may need dealing with, in that they may be (however unwittingly) contributing to an issue you may have, or have accepted their lot in life and expect you to similarly accept yours.
- A certain amount of professional, caring detachment may be required to deal with a situation with complete honesty.
- I will be prepared to challenge you to move forward through something you may find difficult.
- I have extensive training in techniques, including active listening, appropriate questioning, motivation and communications.
- The sessions are in your hands. You drive the agenda. I facilitate it
Can’t I just get the same from a book?
- Books are helpful, and I should know, I’ve worked my way through many of them. However, nothing can beat the personal concentrated one-to-one time.
- The relationship with your coach is built upon trust and commitment (on both sides).
- The coach offers deadlines to succeed, and helps build your confidence, energy and motivation.
- That personal relationship encourages an engagement with practice rather than just theory.
Successful coaches possess the following traits:
- They are interested in people, and care about them
- They truly want to help
- They are determined, committed and willing to learn
- They are flexible and resilient
- They see the best in people – even when others don’t.
Accountability
Regular sessions with a life coach provide accountability.
With the knowledge that your coach will want to see what progress you have made, you will feel inspired to work through distractions and fears and push yourself forward to the life that you’ve always wanted, but can only see through a fog.
Confidentiality
All sessions with me, including any notes I may take, are kept strictly confidential
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