What is a Life Coach?

Originally posted on December 17, 2020

Life Coaches are life changers.  They are question-askers, challengers, assignment-giving, client-serving professionals who seek to give you the tools to find what you are seeking.  They do not have answers to all of your questions, but they have questions for your questions.  They want to get to know you as the client, learn your experience and dive a bit deeper into what it will take for you to achieve your goals.  You can expect to be challenged during every session and if a conversation is not enough then to complete activities to breakthrough your mental block.  You can also expect to be asked difficult questions that will make you wonder why you decided to go on this journey.  This will make you uncomfortable because all of this will be building you and growing you. 

A good Life Coach will be certified and had gone through training.  They will have experience with building trust and fostering aprofessional connection with their client to ensure that the space that they are providing to you will be one that allows for enlightenment and growth.  When you’re ready to hire a Life Coach, look for those that talk about their experience and be ready to ask questions about that experience.  

Determine when you’re ready

Deciding to hire a Life Coach should be a decision you make when you’re ready to committing to taking action.  Life Coaches are not therapists.  Let me repeat … Life Coaches are NOT therapists.  We can give you tools to get through difficult times, but healing must be taking place when you make the decision to hire a Life Coach.  There are times that a person may hire a Life Coach when they are in the middle of healing as a way to continue to move forward, but by that point, they’ve already received the appropriate tools to help with their healing and now they want to have someone keep them accountable to moving forward.  Life Coaches will be able to assist with giving a person the tools to put one foot in front of the other and not tripping over the past.

You may also determine that you are ready to get un-stuck.  This means that you’ve found yourself in a cycle of thoughts, whether they are negative thoughts or just “sticky” thoughts that you just can’t find yourself pushing forward.  Maybe you’ve found some good self-help books, but you need a person to talk through ideas or create a vision with.  Life, meet coach.  Life Coaches are really great at assisting a person through finding the voice and answer inside of themselves.  Think of us as lights that you’ve just not turned “on” yet; once a Life Coach has been activated, then you will be able to see the path that exists in front of you.

There may not be a “right time” to hire a Life Coach.  The right moment may not present itself and it may feel like a dreadful thing to do. This would also be an indicator to explore hiring a Life Coach.  Do your research, interview some potential coaches and then determine if it is the right fit for you.  

Choosing a Life Coach

When you’ve reached the point where you are making the decision on getting help to navigate the next steps, it is important to consider choosing a Life Coach to help guide you through those steps and keep you accountable.  However, when you are choosing a Life Coach, it is important to choose one that will help you set goals, be challenged, grow and sustain the tools you’ve gained.  That is a lot to expect from one person, so it is also important to choose a person that you would work well with.

As I had mentioned earlier, experience is important in this field – and you will find a diversity of experience levels in your search.  Whoever you choose to work with, be sure to ask as many questions during your consultation call with them as you can.  Also about that introductory meeting, prepare as much as you can with questions for them and the goals that you are hoping to achieve so that both of you have reasonable expectations going into a (potential) working relationship. 

What’s next?

After you’ve made the best decision for yourself, it’s time to evaluate what is next in your experience.  If the decision you made was to move forward with hiring a Life Coach, then visit my blog about how to get the most value out of your work with your Life Coach.  Until then, live with strategy and gusto!