Personal Life Coach; Creating a Powerful Team for Success
One of the most powerful helping professions for those wanting to improve their personal &/or professional lives, will likely to meet their life coach and their personal life coaching services.
What is Personal Life Coaching?
" A personal life coach relationship is a co-creative partnership, where a client and coach team up for greater success. "
Often in our stress-filled society, people feel it is them against the world. That success is achieved stoically, by hunkering down and figuring things out by themselves. However, this is rarely the truth. If we examine high achievement throughout history, rarely (never) will you find someone that really achieved success alone. A Personal Life Coach client-team creates a synergy, which propels one to success.
What does a Personal Life Coach Do?
Many come to a Life Coach with clarity on what they want from the personal life coaching relationship. Others come because of an overall dissatisfaction with some aspect of their life. Depending on the situation, one of the first questions a Personal Life Coach might ask is, are you living a life by your design, or, do you currently feel stuck in one or more areas of your life? From this starting point, the coach and client can explore and find clarity on what the client wants. Now to avoid any confusion, let’s understand the difference between a professional personal life coach and a psychologist.
Difference Between Personal Life Coach & Psychologist ?
A personal life coach first creates a safe space to support the client in clearing up problems and setting goals. Next, the coach and client develop a process to reach the target including detailed action steps required to achieve success in the future. It is similar to how a coach supports an athlete who is already good, but still wants to be even better.
This striving for improvement and personal growth is called self-actualization. Something that Abraham Maslow wrote about in, “A Theory of Human Motivation” which he calls, “The Hierarchy of Needs.”
A psychologist, on the other hand, first interviews a client to diagnose mental illness. Often they assume someone struggling or not fulfilled in their life could have a mental deficiency. The psychologist relationship is often focusing on problems or traumatic events that happened in the past. The belief is, if these past issues get explored and healed, the client can then move forward. So in many ways, a psychologist path is revealing why it does not work, while the coach concentrates on how to make it work. Both coaches and therapists are necessary and much-needed professions. One is not better than the other; it just depends on the clients’ needs.
Personal development life coaching services follows a self-leadership coaching model. This coaching model starts with the belief that people looking for their services, come to them whole, complete and capable of achieving what they want. Therefore, a Personal Life Coach will rarely offer advice. To do so would interfere with the client’s process, to believe in themselves and step out on their own. A life coach not believing their client is capable, must refer these people to the appropriate professional such as a therapist.
Certainly, this does not mean that Personal Life Coach clients do not have difficulties. But it does mean coaching clients are willing and able to accept a challenge. Overall, a personal life coach assists the client to explore problems thoroughly, including limiting beliefs in an open, thoughtful manner. What holds people stuck is the inability to see options, when confronted with non-supporting beliefs. With the support and exploration of a personal training life coaching, the client discovers breakthroughs and new ways to approach challenges.
Personal Life Coaches are also very skilled in discussing the process of achievement and action plans. How best for the client to get from point A to point B. To do this, most coaches use some form of the SMART action plan method. Goals Must Be:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Realistic
- Timely
As clients explore their goal and the importance of it, they often learn a great deal about themselves in the process. This new knowledge allows clients to get “unstuck” from what is holding them back, while promoting personal growth and development. A fundamental role of the personal life coach is to reinforce and support this growth.
One way coaches do this is by keeping the clients accountable for their actions. Once the client has clarity about the goal, the process needed for achievement and an action plan in place, the coach holds them accountable each step of the way. The
Personal Life Coach client relationship is a serious relationship where both parties agree to a very high standard.
Most personal life coaches specialize in particular areas such as; career, health, wellness, business, relationships, etc... This does not mean that life coaches can only coach in those areas, but it does make it more attractive for clients looking for a Personal Coach that matches the area where they want to focus.
Becoming an effective Professional Personal Life Coach requires training at a coach training school. Human beings are complex, and while most people have had success with helping friends and family, a professional life coach has superior skills. Many good schools offering certified life coach training are found via the ICF (International Coach Federation) website. The ICF is the largest professional coaching organization in the world, and any of the schools they have accredited are excellent choices.
For those driven, passionate and inspired to help others, a career as a professional Personal Life Coach would be a very fulfilling career.