What is Life Coaching?

There are two main areas of coaching available, business and personal life coaching and both are about effecting change and motivating growth in order for a person to reach their full potential.

People come to Life Coaching fundamentally because they have realised that they have an issue or issues in their life that they want to change and perhaps they are feeling stuck and need a safe and comfortable place to explore how to move forward.

So how does Life Coaching help?

The training in Life Coaching that I undertook to qualify for my diploma was based on a coaching process founded on 10 core principals:

1. My clients are creative, resourceful and whole; not broken, bruised and battered.
2. Action oriented.  Plans, goals and dreams are great, but ultimately if they are not accompanied by concrete actions they are worthless.  I have been trained to work with clients to assist them to lay out an overall Goal and Action Plan at the beginning of the coaching relationship along with creating specific Action Steps at the end of every coaching session.
3. Accountability and truth telling.  I have been trained to hold my clients accountable for their stated goals and actions.
4. Trust and partnership.  Every great coaching relationship is built on mutual trust between the Coach and Client.  I truly view our coaching relationship as a partnership.  I am not above or below my Clients, but rather beside them, walking along with them on their journey of assessing, planning and achieving their goals and fulfilment.
5. Goal focused.  Actions in the coaching relationship are created when the client develops and implements their S.M.A.R.T goals – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time Bound.  I hold my clients accountable to their S.M.A.R.T. goals and confirm the client’s action plans at each coaching session.
6. Results driven.  Ultimately your coaching session must produce actual results to be a worthwhile investment.  Goals and results are set up at the beginning of the coaching relationship, are agreed upon by all parties and must be measurable.
7. Confidentiality.  What is said between me and my clients stays between us.  I respect my clients and their privacy.  While some clients have no problem telling others about their experience with a Coach, other people may not feel comfortable.  Confidentiality on my part is assured.
8. Values based.  I strongly belive that happiness is not achieved by being rich, famous or powerful, but by living according to one’s values.  You can use coaching to clarify your values and learn how to live your life in accordance with them.
9. Focused on developing strengths.  While every person has strengths and weaknesses, research indicates you will get much further ahead faster if you learn how to maximised your strengths rather than simply trying to shore up your weaknesses.  My coaching process will help you discover your key strengths and build your position or company around those strengths while learning how to delegate your areas of weakness to others.
10. Integrity and honesty.  Coaching is not a magic wand, nor is it a panacea to every problem.  Coaching is simply one of the most powerful tools you can use to grow, develop, change and lead.  I belive that I have been trained by a company who treated me as a person of integrity and honesty and whose own integrity and business philosophy has been reflected in the way in which I was taught.

The Life Coaching Process