Since the 1970’s, Life Coaching is a field that has undergone huge growth and has reached into just about every aspect of life. This includes personal life, relationship, business performance, health and more. It can be described as working with people in a way that is creative and thought provoking, so that they can maximise their potential. This short article is our Introduction to Life Coaching.
Life coaching is largely a service offered by trained professionals with a wealth of real world experience, it is also offered by counsellors and therapists. There are now various organisations and coaches that provide professional training and accreditation, such as the International Coach Federation (ICF) or the International Association of Coaching (IAC).
The Difference Between Life Coaching and Counselling
Although commonly thought of as similar, Life Coaches are not Counsellors. A major difference is counsellors is regulated by various medical health organisations, Life Coaches are not. To ensure a coaches work does not move into realm of counselling (which is regulated) the Coach must proceed with great care and attention to their client.
Therefore, coaches aid their clients in improved performance and the life coaching focuses on making skill based and specific changes in someone’s life. On the other hand, Counsellors help with the recovery from mental issues and to achieve a more normal life.
Life Coaching Goals
There are many and a great variety of life coaching goals. For example, mid-career executives in the middle of their careers will seek coaching to help develop skills needed for advancement to senior positions. Some people desire help from a life coach to achieve goals in education and learning. In reality, any aspect of life (academic/educational, relationships, money, career, or others) can be considered suitable for life coaching, at one time or another.
There are many models life coaches can employ, yet they will all use a participatory method as the initial assessment process so both the coach and the client can understand obstacles, goals and actions. The models will all have several stages and phases, so coaching contact can be properly structured. In this brief introduction to life coaching, as an example we’re showing The Nelson-Jones (2007) Model four stage model, as follows:
Stage 1. Relating
This first stage has the goal to build a strong working relationship and identify what is wanted. Empathy and rapport is developed with open-ended questions, helping to generate favourable conversations. During this time the coach will build a plan by getting a sense of why the client is here, their resources, strengths and weaknesses and ambitions.
Stage 2: Understanding
Through effective and skilled questions, probing and reflections exploring the client’s issues, the coach is better able to understand what the root problems are and how different they really want life to be. There becomes a shared understanding of the problems, developing goals and ways to overcome the obstacles to the goal.
The Miracle Question can be useful here: if you woke up tomorrow, and all your problems were solved (but you didn’t know they were solved), how would you know? What would be different?
Stage 3: Changing
This stage is implementing the plans into the client’s life habits. This can be as simple as starting with a journal and calendar/planner so organisation is improved. There is often homework and assignments between coaching sessions that will help the client keep focused and implementing new thoughts and actions. The coach will keep track of progress and together with the client will analyse progress made and successes achieved. tying up loose ends.
Stage 4: Client Self-Coaching
The final stage is discussing and planing what the client can do for themselves after the coaching has finished, in order to for maintenance and improvement. It involves the client continuously applying themselves to self development without the regular intervention with the coach.
Conclusion
Although a brief introduction to life coaching, there are many resources available. After your initial investigation and research into life coaching, it is beneficial to speak directly with a life coach, and many offer free time limited discovery calls.
If you would like to know more how our unique results focused life coaching how it can help you, discover more and book a free first session here: www.evolvedcoaching.co.uk/life-coaching
References
International Coach Federation. (n.d.) “Coaching FAQs – Need Coaching – ICF”. Retrieved on June 14, 2017 from https://www.coachfederation.org/need/landing.cfm?ItemNumber=978&navItemNumber=567
Nelson-Jones, R. (2007) Life Coaching Skills: How to Develop Skilled Clients. SAGE Publications: Thousand Oaks, CA.
