Life is never plain sailing. You can set all the short-, medium- and long-term goals that you want. However, sometimes there’s something that’s not in your control. And this something will disrupt your carefully laid-out objectives.
To borrow a cricket analogy, sometimes this will knock you for six. This is OK. We would be surprised if it didn’t. However, it’s about what you do after this that’s important. You can choose to stay knocked down and let people and situations walk over you for the rest of your life. However, you can get up, dust yourself off and carry on going.
The reason why we’ve started this article off with such a detailed description of a situation is to show you what a life coach does. He or she is instrumental in giving you the tools that you need in order to get up and help you keep going. Just as a sports coach gives his or her players tips, tricks, motivation and advice about how to get to the top of their game a life coach ‘coaches’ you how to make the best possible play that you can in your life.
A life coach isn’t a psychologist
Life coaching and counselling are often confused. A psychologist or a therapist acts as a guide, helping you to realise what tools you need to use in order resolve the challenge that you face in your life. This person doesn’t tell you what you need to do. They help you to come up with the answers yourself.
This psychoanalytical technique is called free association. During this process, the psychologist will let the patient speak about whatever is on his or her mind. And as they talk they find the answers – to what’s on their mind – by themselves. Nancy Kline proposed a similar theory. She said that in order for effective problem-solving to take place one needs to develop a thinking environment where there is the ‘thinker’ who’s saying whatever is on his or her mind and there’s a ‘listener’.
Where this situation differs from the therapy scenario is that in therapy the therapist may encourage the patient at any point in the conversation while in Kline’s thinking environment theory, the listener is not allowed to give any words of encouragement during the thinker’s monologue. The listener only provides encouragement and motivation to speak via non-verbal cues such as eye contact. It’s very important that the listener doesn’t say anything at all so as not to disrupt the thinker’s chain of thought.
The life coaching scenario is very different. Where the psychologist or listener are not permitted to give the patient/thinker any advice about how the former would approach the challenge, a life coach actively gives the client advice on how to tackle the challenges that life throws at them. The life coach will give their client tips and tools about how to deal with the questions that the client has about their life.
Aspects of a client’s life that a life coach will be able to offer advice on include:
- Goal setting
- Relationship coaching
- Career planning
- Wellness coaching
Life coaching isn’t a diagnostic process
When someone goes into therapy, they know that something’s not quite right in their lives but can’t accurately put their finger on the cause. Therapy helps them to determine this cause. With life coaching, the client knows what the problem is and he or she comes to the life coach in order to help them find the tools to come up with the solution.
Life coaching is a way for you to become more focused
As we’ve said previously, if you want a way to achieve a goal in your life – but don’t know what steps are necessary to achieve this – then you need to start visiting a life coach. The sessions that you have with such a professional are finite – they are centred around you achieving your stated goal. You may have more sessions that it takes for you to solve a problem however, the goal of the sessions is always super focused.
A life coach is a powerful guide to helping you get where you want to in life. You need to be focused on what you want to achieve. If you do this, you’re well on your way to getting where you want to go. – A life coach can assist in any area of your life such as fitness, career mapping and relationship problems and guidance.
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2018 ·
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