Life Coaching - What is it?
A life coach will not make your decisions for you. What he/she will do is make you aware of the abundance of options in front of you, motivate you to make the desired changes in your life and support you in your journey from where you are now to where you want to be.
Life coaching generally takes the form of regular, one-to-one sessions of an hour or so, either face to face or over the telephone. The coach will help you to focus your goals and to devise small steps towards meeting them. The coach will also hold you accountable for your progress.
Life coaching is not counselling or psychotherapy. The latter two are about finding emotional resolution to problems, present or past. Life coaching is about changing your behaviour; there is little analysis and lots of action. Your will not spend much time discussing with you how you feel, although he/she will challenge the negative beliefs that are holding you back, in order that you may ditch them and embrace your exciting future.
Have you always wanted to start your own business/work abroad/climb Mount Everest? Do you want to get fit/learn new skills/expand your social If so, what is stopping you from doing it? A life coach can erode your fears, build your confidence and help you to live the life you've always dreamed of.
Life coaching is not the answer for everybody. If you have experienced trauma and/or had a very unhappy or frightening childhood, life coaching will probably not be of use to you until you have worked through your issues with a psychotherapist. However, if your are more in the realms of not being able to get yourself organised, being too busy to think about what you really want out of life or always giving "should" priority over "want to", life coaching can be of limitless value to you.
You can find a life coach to give your life a general shake-up or to specialise in a specific area. You can have coaching to help your work, coaching to help you land the job you've always wanted, coaching to support you through a big change such as moving house, coaching to inspire and motivate you to make the most of your life - any, all or a mixture of these.
It's not difficult to find yourself a life coach by searching the internet. It doesn't matter if there isn't one in your area, because you can always have your coaching on the telephone. Most coaches will offer a introductory consultation, during which you can decide whether life coaching is for you and whether you like this coach's style. So you've got nothing to lose - what are you waiting for?