What is Life Coaching?
Life coaching is a practice with the aim of helping clients determine and achieve personal goals. Life coaching uses multiple methods that will help clients with the process of setting and reaching goals. Coaching is not targeted at psychological illness and coaches are not therapists.
Life coaching differs from counseling in that it is primarily focused on the present and the future. It may be necessary to look back to find the route causes of some unhelpful thinking patterns, and then untie some knots, but the process returns to the “where are we now?” and the “where do we want to go?”.

Who is Life Coaching for?

You! It’s for anyone who wants to improve some aspect of their life. There are 4 main areas of focus in coaching agreements; Success, Health, Relationship, and Growth/Wisdom. Under each of these areas fall most challenges, opportunities and new possibilities on which to focus. For example, you may want a promotion, to write a novel, to find your perfect partner, to find new self confidence, or get rid of a destructive habit. Alternatively, you may want to create more balance between your work or private life or you may have an unrealized goal to start your own business, find the focus necessary for passing important exams or it may simply be you are unhappy without knowing why.

Whatever you want to change or create, coaching can probably help. There are a couple of notable exceptions. One, if you have a mental illness or a hard drug problem, then coaching is probably not the best primary option for you.
How does Life Coaching Work?

Some is done face to face, other times by phone (or internet telephony), sessions run between 30 minutes to an hour and a half. Sessions frequency can range greatly depending on your needs and choices. Bi-weekly is most common for new clients. Most often clients will work with their life coach for several months. Average length for coaching is 15 months. Every case is unique, but as a rule of thumb, major change happens between month 4 and month 8 and clients are able to create sustainability for that major change by month 12.

So what happens in the session?

Well, again, every case is unique. Exactly what we do depend on the client, the issue being worked on, and where we are in the process, but here are some things which are almost always true:

• The sessions are completely confidential

• The sessions are directed toward what you choose to create for yourself and your life

• The session is a two way conversation to allow you access through distinctions you will need to create and/or sustain “success” and powerful living

• You will often be left with “Homework” to practice and apply tools obtained in coaching
• Techniques and tools may be shared. This provides a range of tools to help clients change their behaviors and the underlying thinking which drives it.

Living with Freedom and Power!

Coaching is for you. The more you ask for and the more you put in (action, time, and investment) the more you will get.  “The grass is not always greener on the other side . . . it is greener where it is watered. Being coached is a chance for you to create “new” possibilities where none exist!
They say “life is what you make it”, but most of us feel like victims in our lives, rather than the architect/designer/creator of it. Accepting responsibility for our own life is a challenge but an absolutely essential first step in living powerfully and being free. Uncontrollable events certainly can happen now and then but most of our lives (our careers, our progress towards our dreams, our relationships, our health, our happiness, our spiritual growth) are all our own choosing whether conscience or unconscious. 

The fact is that most of us attempt to control the events in our lives and complain that we don’t seem able affect our circumstances. So we tend to learn to tolerate our circumstances. As we grow older, we see the dreams fade. Some will smile as they look back at the simple optimism and ideals of our youth. Others will be a whole lot less philosophical about our decline. The fact is that society doesn’t train us for the practicalities of being successful (however we define that term).

We’re taught that thinking of our own wants is selfish and it becomes tough to re-assert ourselves.  All of this is exactly what your Life Coach is here to help you with.