19 Jul Game plan
When we think of coaching, most of us picture a coach leading a sports team to victory on the sports field. However, coaching has evolved into so many more areas of life than just on the sports field and coaching can help you achieve success in your everyday life too.
All of us move through many transitions in life – career shifts, personal shifts, family shifts and other life shifts but we rarely stop to evaluate how our values, priorities and goals change through each of these transitions. What happens then is that we expect our lives to be how they were in a different season, before kids, for example, or in a different role at work, where in reality, it can never be the same as before as there’s been a transition that has shifted things. This leads to discontentment and unhappiness because we feel our lives are not going well or not as good as they should be. Things have changed, so should expectations of ourselves for our lives.
Life coaching is the process of identifying where you are in your life, where you’d like to move towards and defining actionable steps to move you in that direction. The process of coaching is to unlock potential in individuals to maximise performance and success both in an outside of the workplace. Life coaching creates a space to evaluate what is important to you in this season and space of your life and equips you to more intentionally create a life that has energy and time for those things.
Coaching is not therapy and it is also different from mentoring. Mentorship is a process where the mentor shares experience, knowledge and skills to help the mentee learn, develop and grow. Coaching is far more goals orientated and focused on achievement of those goals. Here are some differences between coaching and therapy:
| COACHING | THERAPY |
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Forward looking – looks towards your future and helps you develop a plan to get there, from where you are today Collaborative partnership – coach helps client discover the answers Goals focused – helps you discover what matters, what your goals are and how to achieve them by leveraging your strengths and developing your weaknesses Action orientated – encourages immediate action based on thought out steps to move towards your goals
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Backward looking – delves into your past to discover what is preventing you from functioning optimally today Doctor-patient relationship – the therapist provides answers Issues focused – helps you cope with find solutions to issues keeping you from mental stability Diagnosis orientated – seeks to diagnose conditions or disorders in order to prescribe treatment |
There are many reasons why you would benefit from having a life coach. Here are just a few:
- Get clear on what is important to you in this season or space of life that you are in
- Navigate life transitions with purpose and intention
- Learn tools to help you invest your time and energy wisely for the space of life that you are in
- Boost your self-confidence by experiencing progress towards your goals and shifts towards what matters most to you
- Create alignment of your values and reality
- Create forward momentum towards your goals
- Discover a different perspective to the challenges you face
Finding the right coach for you is essential if you want to experience these benefits from life coaching. You’ve got to find a coach that you “fit” with, one who can inspire and equip you through your coaching conversations and one which can share their experiences with you as tools for your own personal development and growth. Take time to find the right coach through an initial one-on-one meeting. Most coaches offer an initial chemistry session free of charge – use it!
We’re all on a continuous cycle of learning and growth. Getting a life coach can help you embed these learnings to help you develop a game plan to improve your life and shift more intentionally to what matters to you.
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