What is Life Coaching?
A Life Coach calls upon their coaching training and life experience to assist their clients to discover that which they really want.
- Asks us to be more than we thought we could be on our own.
- Helps us to gain clarity and focus to produce results more quickly.
- Provides us with the tools, support and structure to be more.
- Develop a VISION for our life.
- Formulate practical steps to help us CREATE our VISION.
Can a Coach help me?
Firstly a Coach will help us discover what it is we really want – our vision for our life. By the use of Coaching specific tools, Coaches help clients to clarify our vision. Our life vision/goal may be to run a multinational corporation, or simply doing the job we want to do, cultivate the relationships with the people in our life that makes us laugh and bring us joy or may be enhancing our self-esteem or confidence to reclaim our lives.
Note : it is not Coach’s vision but clients vision. The Coach does not have the answers – we have the answers. The Coach has the questions. Just as a baby in the womb does not need to be conceived, but only to grow and be given birth to, the vision is already alive within us as a part of our values, dreams, desires and life experiences. All it needs is to be re-discovered, developed and delivered.
The coach believes that everyone’s life has a vision and a purpose. However, if we have dirty glasses we will not be able to see our vision. The Coach will help us clean our glasses so we can see what it is we want from our lives and also see the enormous potential hidden inside of us.
How does the Coach help me?The Coach will use coaching tools that will not only helps us see our vision clearly, our present situation in perspective of our life’s goals, our attitudes and beliefs but also empowers and equips us to move ahead in directions of our goals with enhanced self esteem, new found confidence and clear vision.
By engaging with our coach in the unique coaching conversation we together discover new and unique possibilities – new paradigms for positive life action.
Participating in the coaching conversation for the first time is a unique and often profound experience for anyone. The focus is solely on us and our wants, desires, needs, dreams and sometimes our disappointments and failures.
At what other time in life does someone devote their whole time and attention on us? Coaching achieves profound life changes however, it is not therapy or counselling and it is important to be aware of the differences.
What’s the difference between coaching, counseling, consulting, mentoring & therapy?
Many people confuse coaching with counseling, consulting, mentoring or therapy. All these paradigms are distinctive yet similar. Practitioners often employ techniques from either of the paradigms when dealing with clients. These fields can coexist and benefit from each other when used in harmony.
Coaching is a fine art of facilitating commitment, meaningful engagement, learning and development. Coaching helps us build our own awareness, understanding and decision making. A good coach co-creates collective and cooperative partnership to unlock our potential by invigorating our inner power, values and creativity. Coaching unlike therapy, which is focused on ‘what has happened’ and ‘the problem’, focuses on what is possible. It is future focused, action oriented and supportive in helping clients move towards their goals.Coaching helps us make fantastic achievements over a range of topics from relationship management, personality development, personal performance enhancement, productivity and career paths.
Counselors offers counseling to those who are facing adjustment or developmental issues. Counseling is closely allied with Therapy. Counselors come from variety of backgrounds namely nursing, psychology and social work. They specialize in areas such as family counseling, career counseling, couple counseling, relationship counseling and de-addiction counseling.
A consultant is a professional who provides professional or expert advice in a specialized area. A consultant is usually an expert or a professional in a specific field and has a wide knowledge of the subject matter. The overall impact of a consultant is that clients have access to deeper levels of expertise.
A mentor tends to be offering their own experience as guidance, and may or may not use a coaching style. So mentors are usually not trained in listening or questioning skills, or in techniques to aid confidence, self belief, etc. Mentoring therefore is limited to areas of the mentor’s experience.
In simple terms, most forms of therapy, including counselling, focus on ‘what has happened’. They are concerned with ‘the problem’ and with regaining mental balance and perspective. A therapist is a qualified professional who uses psychological interventions with the client. A therapeutic alliance between the client and the therapist is formed with the purpose of helping the client overcome certain psychological dysfunctions that disrupt his/her personal, social, occupational, cognitive and emotional functioning. The therapist-client relationship is terminated once the psychological contract is over.
Related Articles : Types of Coaching.
Coach is not someone telling us how to live your life.
Only we know how we should live our life. No one knows more about us than we. We set the agenda and the pace. We are in control at all times. Coaching is a profound tool that will reveal our potential because our potential is what drives the process.
What is the Coach’s role?The Coach is someone who is in our corner at all times, and who believes in us. Through keen observation, training and experience, and by means of the coaching conversation our Coach will help us reveal our inner potential and then supports us as we build on this to create the life you want.
We could consider our coach a co-driver who sits besides us with the life map and destination we have chosen and who then encourages and supports us on our journey toward the life we want to live.
The Coaching Process
The coaching process begins with our phone call or email where we ‘touch base’ and get answers of any questions we may have. It also gives s the opportunity to state what our expectations are and to outline what we would like to achieve from coaching. If, following our initial contact with the coach, we feel we must move on with the coaching then we plan to have a pilot session.
How do I know that coaching is right for me?
If we feel ready to make beneficial changes to our life, want to get rid of limiting beliefs, enhance our self esteem, move ahead to a higher level then coaching can help us achieve those results. Coaching is not a therapy; though many a time a blend of therapy and counseling are applied to benefit the process of coaching. It’s a way of helping ordinary people do things differently, better and more effectively. It can help us deal with difficult situations and think more positively about ourselves and our abilities.
How does a coach know what I should do with our life?
They don’t, but they know how to help us do our best thinking, come to thoughtful decisions and make things happen. Many coaches will offer various exercises and techniques that can be helpful with respect to positive thinking, confidence, self-belief and effective communication.
What are the ways and benefits of different coaching specially telephone coaching?
There are various options we can choose to have coaching, such as one-to-one or face-to-face coaching, telephone coaching, skype/video coaching, cafe coaching. All the various options are designed to facilitate client to use this incredible tool to help achieve their desired results in their life.
Out of all telephone/video coaching is an incredibly powerful way of coaching. Out of these two, Telephone coaching even offers a unique blend of intimacy and anonymity that helps clients feel comfortable and empowered (we can choose to be totally anonymous while choosing phone coaching) – with none of the distractions that can come from face-to-face or even video coaching. It’s also convenient – no stress of travelling, and no wasted waiting.
One other benefit of telephone/video coaching is that you get to choose from a wider range of coaches without the geographical restrictions.But the main reason telephone coaching is so popular is because it works, it doesn’t require special equipment, specific place or any special preparation.
I personally recommend Telephone Coaching.
How much does life coaching cost?
Life coaches charges are depending upon lots of factors like experience of coach, length of sessions, the nos of sessions or even the gravity of the challenge.
How do I generally pay?
Most coaches offers various payment options like we can can pay by cheque, bank transfer or credit card (via PayPal). Some business clients pay via their company invoicing system.
Coaches offer a complementary session – what’s that like?
It’s a friendly discussion with our the coach to find out more about the challenge or to initially understand the issue. Firstly the coach looks at the challenges and issues that are concerning us. The coach than will explain the way how his style of coaching may help us achieve the changes we desire and the different approaches he could adopted.
It will be a 15-20 minutes no-obligation, free coaching call with our coach and will help us decide whether coaching is right for us, and also whether the coach is the right coach for us.Finally the coach will ask very simply that if you would like to do more work with him/her. There is no obligation to say yes and at no point during the call.
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What does it feel like to be coached?
Exciting, intense and powerful – yet safe, confidential and supportive. It can feel strange at first to have the focus of a conversation on ourselves and our life situations. As we commit to new actions and set ourselves new compelling goals we will feel determined and purposeful. Confidence and self-belief are some of the benefits from our new achievements.
Is the coaching service confidential?
Yes, completely, provided we are not discussing current criminal offences or anything like that! All personal information and details are kept securely and no information is disclosed to anyone in any form. Even the testimonials which we can provide after the successful coaching are not disclosed without our consent.
Do coaches have to be qualified?
Regrettably not – so do take care in choosing a coach. Even ‘qualified’ coaches can have done massively different courses. Experience and testimonials are invaluable in helping us choose a competent coach. Of course certification and qualification add value to coaches credibility.
PS : The above FAQs have come out from my own personal coaching experience, the books I referred about coaching, other coaches experiences and also the reading material available from other coaches on the net.
I hope the above FAQs and their answers helps you to understand coaching more deeply and also will assist you to consider coaching for your goals or challenges.
