WHAT IS A LIFE COACH?

What is a life coach?

If you are are wanting the question of What is a life coach? answering, then this page should help give you the answers. The definition of a life coach will vary dependent on what your specific goals are, however, essentially a life coach is somebody who helps people attain their life goals.

The ancient Indian poet, Rumi, wrote “what you seek is seeking you”. A life coach will help you find this. A life coach doesn’t consult, counsel, mentor, or offer therapy but looks to instil in you a degree of self-motivation and self-empowerment to enable you to make, meet and then exceed your life, business or health goals both in your professional and personal life.

The life coaches who have the most profound impact on people’s lives have a balance of skills, expertise and delivery. This is often supported with a wealth of knowledge and experience as opposed to theoretical rhetoric. Coaches who are able to transform people’s lives with the most profundity have often achieved proven success in their own lives and businesses and very much practice what they preach.

Whilst life coaches may make reference to your health and diet to improve your overall wellbeing and ability to deliver your goals, they are rarely health professionals. As a result they cannot offer any health diagnosis’s. Similarly, life coaches will come together with you to accept the past as it is. A life coach will focus on the present and the future, because that is all there actually is. If you spend your life looking in the rear view mirror of your car, you will eventually crash. This same analogy can be applied to your life. Focussing on the past will inhibit your from taking full strides forward.

A therapist or councillor helps navigate the murky terrain of your past. Whilst a therapist may analyse patterns from your past, they will rarely offer you actionable points. A life coach offers an opposite strategy – helping you develop clear, actionable plans focussing on the present by analysing and dissecting your current situation. They identify any limiting beliefs you may have or any other potential blocks, challenges or obstacles that may inhibit you from taking full strides forward. A competent life coach will help devise strategies and plans to overcome these obstacles. This will enable to you to reach and maximise your full potential and realise specific outcomes in your life.

What is a life coach and what are their top 10 responsibilities to you?

 A good life coach will:

  1. Identify and sculpt a vision that the client wants. These include personal and business goals.
  2. Modify these goals to make them achievable and exceed able.
  3. Encourage strategies and action plans to realise these goals in-keeping with the clients’ personality and lifestyle.
  4. Create a relationship with the client to ensure the coach forms the accountability that the client may need to deliver on their plan and goals.
  5. Nurture the clients own self-growth, motivation and own level of accountability and drive.
  6. Use their knowledge and expertise to support and give advice.
  7. Foster self-discovery and considered risk taking and shine light on paths that may never have been considered exploring
  8. Know when to give distance to allow the client to bloom themselves without stifling them through advice, tips, techniques and methodology.
  9. Share in the client’s success when it arrives.
  10. Be passionate, empathetic, and a listener not just a talker or advice giver. Understand that coaching is a two way process.

The most in demand life coaches will have all of these skills and more. These skills will ensure that their clients will realise their own satisfaction in achieving things they didn’t think possible. These skills will allow the client to maximise their potential and research shows that it is a combination of both coaching and training that is a much more potent combination than training alone. Studies have shown that training alone can increase productivity by over 20% whereas weekly life coaching can help boost productivity to over 80%.

 

What is a Life coach compared to a Therapist or Counsellor?

Whilst both a life coach and therapist and counsellor all define goals, need good communication skills, both build trust and rapport, there are some distinct differences too.

  • Whilst a therapist is diagnosing the client’s problems, a life coach is improving their performance.
  • Whilst a therapist is focussing on the client’s past, a life coach is focussed on the future and the present.
  • Whilst a therapist is problem-orientated, a life coach is solution orientated.
  • Whilst a therapist offers values healing, a life coach is developing a clients’ potential.
  • Whilst a therapist is discussing clients’ problems, a life coach is giving them direction.

Some of the main focusses of a Therapist are: helping their clients to recover from past traumas such as business or personal relationships. They will help clients work through any depression or anxiety associated with these past traumas or other equally powerful life events such as divorce, broken family or personal relationships or death within the family.

A life coach focuses more on achieving a better work life balance, creating business plans to grow your business and clarifying and achieving personal and professional goals.

“You can find a fantastic range of Life Coaches and NLP Practitioners on this resource. All have extensive experience and a passion for helping others!” L.C.N.M