So What is Life Coaching?
- Julie Pollock
- May 6, 2020
- 3 min read
Do you have a friend that you trust who is the first person to contact when you need to work through an issue? We all do and they are the salt of the earth. If you were to take that one step further to enjoy the company of a friend who you trust, who asks the right questions and holds you accountable - well that sounds like a Life Coach!
My husband is being coached by one of my colleagues and I will never forget the comment he made after his first session with her. He said, "Geez, it's like talking to a friend who has some training and knows how to get the best out of you." I smiled and responded, "Yep, that is about right."
In the past four months, I have been heavily involved in training while learning lots of theories, techniques, and styles. The biggest lesson I learned about myself and my approach was that I immediately tried to fix the problem without really listening and understanding. Boy! that was an eye-opener and took me quite some time to change my closed questions into open-ended questions. Conversations began to flow immensely from one small, but significant adjustment.
The art of questioning is the whole focus around Life Coaching and there are many different facets of coaching. You have probably seen career coaches, fitness coaches, executive coaches to name a few. The important thing to keep in mind is that they all have certain criteria that apply to all:
1. A relationship is created between the coach and the client - that is pretty special?
2. No advice just collaboration - what a novel idea!
3. Forget the past and focus on discovering solutions, goal accomplishments,
and improving quality of life. Hard to do I know.
4. Self-directed learning and growth by the client. Yep, you read that right, the client leads the conversation.
5. The coaching process includes 70% asking questions and 30% insight.
What I have learned first hand is how beneficial it has been for me to be coached in four specific ways:
1. I was given the power to manage my own life. As coaches we know we cannot fix people.
2. I was asked to take a 360-degree view of my life and there were areas that really needed some fine-tuning.
3. I needed to understand what my strengths were and how I could move forward with confidence.
4. Once I realized that taking action in my life was the same way I have taken action with my health and self-care, there was no turning back.
For those of you reading this and still not sure; remember, each coach has a story of their own to share. As stated by JRNI Coaching "unlock the power of your story and make a bigger impact on the world." I am a coach for the hopeful. We all need hope. Hope is your Plan B when the great aspirations of Plan A crumble. So get up, wipe your tears, dust yourself off and proceed with Plan B. Whatever path you take it is going to be a bumpy one. Getting on the right track is an action step to future visioning and realizing that your growth is in the journey, not the end result.
AM I ENOUGH? You bet you are!
"I believe every single human is capable of transforming their lives, building self-love, and harnessing inner power to live an authentic, purpose-filled life (JRNI, 2020)
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