Despite the popularity of the term “life coach,” very few people have a firm grasp of what this job is and when and where to employ one. The following will explore what life coaches are, what work they do, and how this information could help you.
What Is A Life Coach?
A life coach is a professional trained to serve others as a mentor. Their job is to help others discover strengths and weaknesses. They identify the obstacles holding others back and ways to overcome these obstacles.
What Does A Life Coach Do?
As the coach of a sports team helps individuals pursue their aims (winning) by developing a plan for the group, a life coach enables you to create a plan for your life. They present strategies for obstacles, maintaining motivation, and sometimes addressing past experiences that have shaped present issues. Often, a life coach’s work is to shift our perspectives of ourselves as limiting beliefs are one of the most common, secret reasons for struggling to succeed and overcome challenges. It can be hard to pinpoint these beliefs on our own as these perspectives were often embedded in our psyches at a very young age.
What Doesn’t A Life Coach Do?
The above description leaves a lot of space for specialization. You might be left wondering what life coaches don’t tackle as part of their work.
- They don’t give advice
- They don’t do things for you
- They don’t offer therapy
- They keep the conversation focused on the topics you want to improve upon
- They don’t diagnose mental, physical, or emotional issues
Who Would Benefit Most From A Life Coach?
Life coaches might be the right choice for people who are seeking guidance through a significant life change (like starting a new career). Or for people who are attempting to find more happiness and meaning in their current circumstances.
People who have high levels of stress or anxiety, struggle to break bad habits, feel creatively blocked, are dissatisfied with their work, often irritable, or lack fulfillment in social or work situations are excellent matches for life coaches.
What Can Life Coaches Specialize In?
There are as many ways to be a life coach as there are life coaches in the world, but there are some larger categories this job tends to focus on. Here are some examples:
- Addiction /sobriety coaching
- Career coaching
- Leadership coaching
- Dating/relationship coaching
- Business/executive coaching
- Divorce coaching
- Diet/fitness coaching
- Financial coaching
- Wellness coaching
- Life skills coaching
- Spiritual coaching
- Family life coaching
Some life coaches tend to look at the bigger picture—life as a whole—when working. Others like to focus on specific areas within one person’s life, like their work, for example.
What Are Some Of The Problems Life Coaches Can Work On With You?
If you’re still unsure whether a life coach is right for you, it might be worth thinking about the type of problems that life coaches can help you strategize for and tackle. Experts at coachtrainingedu.com emphasize that most life coaches’ main focus is connecting your current life to the life you’d like to be living. Some examples include:
- Building stronger relationships with friends and family
- Finding a better and more stable work/life balance
- Finding more satisfaction in your work life
- Dealing with fears and anxieties about your life
- Improving communication and networking skills
- Fostering more creativity in your days
- Securing financial stability
- Reducing procrastination or other habits that negatively affect goal attainment
What Else Should You Know?
Life coaches are able to help you reframe your situation so that you can focus on the steps that are going to bring you closer to your dreams. Because of this, you can expect to be asked some hard-hitting questions. The first stage of your work with a life coach will involve narrowing down what you want to accomplish in your life. The second stage will likely include figuring out what is standing between your current life and the one you dream about. Many people experience personal growth in his process because, for most of us, part of what is standing in our way is ourselves. Expect lots of homework.
With the above information, you should be able to sense whether or not life coaching is the right choice for you right now. There are many ways a life coach can help you. If you decide to move forward and book one, make sure to take the time to get to know them a little beforehand. Try to talk to them in person and feel out whether the two of you “vibe well.” You’re going to need to be honest with this person and share your wins, fails, and fears with them.
