What is Life Coaching and How did it Begin?
Mentors, teachers, advisors, and other professional helpers have been coaching people for decades, but they did not call themselves coaches. It was not until the early 1980s that the field began to formally organize itself. Today, coaching is a highly recognized and respected occupation. The primary aim of life coaching is to help clients determine and achieve personal goals.
What is the Benefit in Life Coaching?
At different times in life, everyone needs a sounding board. Life coaching, in the form of an outsider’s objective perspective, can be the best source for advice, support, and feedback. Life coaches use various methods and strategies to help clients with the process of setting and reaching goals. They may apply values assessment, behavior modification, behavior modeling, and mentoring—whatever it takes to help a client move from being stuck to being empowered
Why do People Become Stuck in the First Place?
One of the factors that contributes to becoming stuck and overwhelmed is fear of the unknown. You may ask yourself:
- What will come next if I move forward in life?
- What will happen if I take a risk?
- If I set goals, how will I manage achieving those goals?
- What if I fail?
While success is never guaranteed, looking at life as a seamless stream of opportunities instead of problems is the standpoint from which coaching begins.
Many people fear the unknown to a point of paralysis. They hold fearful thought patterns that cause immobilization and they fear moving forward. Life coaching can assist them in seeing their life situation from a different perspective. It may not be an easy task for them to break free from their fixed mindset or to make a 180-degree turn to see life from a very different angle. However, even one degree in a new direction is enough to open a new path to discovery.
Five Helpful Coaching Tools
Below are five helpful coaching tools and approaches for forming a new relationship with your goals and the unknown.
1. Form a new viewpoint.
Be excited and amazed at each new day. Forming a new viewpoint starts with creating new self-talk. Look in the mirror each day and say, “I see life with a new perspective. I will allow my perspective on those around me to change and grow.”
2. View life as a series of lessons and opportunities.
Every roadblock is an opportunity to reach outside your comfort zone. From this standpoint, every challenge is an opening for growth. Every day say, “I welcome the life lessons that will come my way today. I find subtle aspects of daily life enriching.”
3. Release fear of the unknown.
Remember that you are more than you might realize. Allow yourself to feel that greatness. State, “I will not fear that which I do not understand, nor will I turn away from situations that make me feel uncomfortable. I accept and meet challenges with poise.”
4. Commit to accepting change.
Begin to understand that change happens to enrich your life—change is essential to the human experience. Resisting change only prolongs the struggle with it. Say each day, “I love life with all of its challenges, because changes are part of life.”
5. Be excited about life and explore the unknown.
It will provide you with untold wealth in the form of life-enriching events.
If all of this seems too daunting to face alone, then find a coach who will be your success partner, expert listener, and chief strategist. Your coach will draw your best self forward and hold you to your goals. A worthy coach is the wind beneath your wings as you move through unknown skies to broader horizons.
This is an article I wrote for InnerRewards.com (c) InnerRewards.com 2008
