What is Life Coaching and What Makes it Unique?

• Other kinds of coaching
• How is life coaching different?
• The coaching relationship
• How the coach helps
• How you get results
• Find out more

Other kinds of coaching

You are probably already familiar with other kinds of coaches.

You know that a sports coach gets a team to focus on the goal of winning the next game.

You might also know that a business coach or executive coach helps business teams or individuals to perform more effectively to meet targets, such as time management, communication, teamwork, planning, etc.

Basically, the common factor between these two kinds of coaches is that they are there to help the client achieve results.

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How is life coaching different?

A life coach is also there to help the client achieve results, but there are also several other key factors that make life coaching unique:

1. The agenda is defined solely by the client
2. The client and coach form an alliance to address this agenda
3. The client is accountable for reaching these goals
4. Results are achieved by addressing the client’s whole life
5. The coach continuously focuses, acknowledges and champions the client
6. The results can be either tangible or intangible (or both)
7. The ultimate goal is for clients to learn how to use their own power and make informed choices to design a life that is rich, fulfilling and fully alive

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The coaching relationship

The key distinction between a life coach and other kinds of coaches is in the nature of the relationship between coach and client.

While the life coach will challenge the client and hold the client accountable for whatever the client has committed to, the life coach is not a "boss" shouting orders for the client to follow.

The coach-client relationship is one of collaboration in which the client is the sole focus. This collaboration is sometimes called an "alliance". As an alliance, it is not the role of the coach to make decisions for the client, but rather to assist the client in achieving their goals.

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How The Coach Helps

However, new clients will often come to a life coach if they are having difficulty making sense of what they actually want to achieve.

In such cases, the trained coach will use a range of coaching technique to assist clients to define their goals by examining their core values, while guiding them to see the bigger picture of where they presently are in their life and where they want to go.

For instance, a client may say that his/her job is unfulfilling. A "tangible" goal might be to work with the client to define a new career path. However, this tangible goal/result is secondary; the primary objective of the agenda is intangible—fulfilment. The act of getting a new job does not automatically bring fulfilment, so it is important first to examine what fulfilment "looks like" to the client, and what changes might bring fulfilment into the client’s life.

This might even result in the client choosing to stay at the same job after all, and to pursue a new outside interest that creates the desired sense of fulfilment, balance and happiness. This gives personal power to you, the client, as it is up to you to choose which solution will bring them closest to what you really want in life.

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How You Get Results

While the most important defining "rule" of life coaching is that the client defines the priorities, goals and the agenda, this does not mean that clients are left to their own devices in the process of reaching those self-defined goals. This is where one of the most powerful tools of the coaching relationship steps in— client accountability. Essentially, the client is "accountable" for whatever targets have been agreed during coaching.

Being accountable for one’s own actions is actually the most empowering aspect of life coaching. While the coach is there to acknowledge, focus and champion the client at every step, ultimately it is the client who is in control of his/her own actions and accomplishment.

So, taking all these aspects of life coaching into consideration, we could define life coaching like this:

Life coaching is a powerful alliance between you and a personal coach for the sole purpose of enabling you to make positive change that you choose for yourself. It addresses and impacts your whole life . Your coach continually focuses, acknowledges and champions you, helping you to reach the goals you wish to achieve, so you can live a rich and fulfilling life.

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