How to Pick a Good Life Coach or Become One

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How to Pick a Good Life Coach Or be One

By Lee Overholser, Ph.D. "He who's not busy being born is busy dying" Bob Dylan Please click here for disclaimer When you are looking for a life coach, the first question often is, “Why do you want to work with a life coach?” People decide to see a life coach for a variety of reasons. Many feel stuck in life and aren’t sure what to do. Others want specific help with particular questions like changing careers or starting a business. Some come in because their life feels out of balance, usually because they are working too hard and don’t have enough time for family and friends and doing the things they like.

Life coaching was created to help people achieve their best. From the beginning life coaching has focused on helping people achieve their dreams and find meaning in their lives on their own terms. The client is the center of the session and the absolute center of life coaching.

Life coaching is more than just fixing a particular problem or clearing up confusion. A good life coach helps you look at your goals and dreams in life, works with your personal motivation and helps you recapture the excitement in your life. Then your life coach gets you to work setting goals, putting action plans together and carrying out specific assignments to make your goals a reality.

As the coaching progresses, blocks will generally emerge and your coach will help you identify those things that stand in your way. Often the biggest blocks are limiting beliefs.

A skilled coach can help you work through those blocks and get you back on the road to success and fulfillment in your life.

Like a Personal Trainer In a lot of ways choosing a life coach is like picking a personal exercise trainer. People hire a personal trainer because they're having trouble getting the results they want from their exercise program or they need motivation to stick with a program.

The interesting thing is that a personal trainer can be incredibly qualified, but not be the right one for you. Now it's obvious you want someone who's had a little more education than just a weekend course. But someone with years of training in physical therapy who has worked with professional athletic teams may not be a good fit for you either. What is great for a professional athlete might well injure us ordinary mortals.

You want a trainer who is going to pay attention to the goals you want to achieve. You

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may want to tone when your muscles, but you may not want to look like a sculpted body builder. Or you may want to lose 20 pounds but not be what you regard as skinny. A good personal trainer will listen to what you want and set up a program that works right for you.

The trainer also pays attention to you emotionally and physically. A good trainer wants to know about your health and what kinds of exercise you can handle. A poor trainer is going to be pushing you hard for results. A good personal trainer won't push you to the point that you injure yourself and lose interest.

The Qualities of a Good Coach The example of looking for a personal trainer tells us a lot about what matters in choosing and working with the right life coach for you. You're there because you want to make a change in your life and you're not quite sure what to do. That's where a life coach comes in.

If you're really clear that you want to start a particular small business, then you need to see someone who specializes in coaching startup businesses. A life coach probably isn't right for you. But if you aren't sure where you want to go next or exactly what you want to do or you have trouble sticking with those things that you want to do, then a life coach is the right professional for you to see. So once you've decided to look for a life coach, what are the qualities that you need to check out?

Most life coaches will offer a free or low-cost first session so that the two of you can get to know each other and decide whether or not there is a good match. This is a great opportunity to get to know each other. You are looking for several things: Does the coach listen to you?

Do the coach’s questions make you think?

Is the coach interested in what matters to you?

Does the coach talk a lot?

Does the coach keep you focused?

Does the coach push you at just the right level?

Are you learning about yourself?

Is there a feeling of excitement in the session?

Do you and the coach work out an assignment?

Interested in You A personal trainer is interested in what you want to get out of an exercise program and a good life coach is interested in you and what you want to accomplish in life. What you want is what matters, not what the life coach thinks is right for you.

Fred was an engineer at a major company who was getting close to burnout. He was getting tired of working so hard and his family life was totally out of balance. His company had career coaches, but he realized that they worked for the company and there

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was no confidentiality. So he decided to seek out a life coach.

After a few phone calls he connected with Mark and make an appointment. Mark was a great listener and that blew Fred away. As he told his friends, “I’ve never had anyone really listen to me like that. It feels great.” So Mark passed the first test, but what about the rest.

Asks the Right Questions In a session it is really obvious if a life coach is interested in your goals and what matters to you. If the coach is asking questions to learn more about you and what you're looking for and really listens to you, then that's the first indicator you've got a potential good match.

One thing Fred noticed was that Mark asked questions that made him think. There were questions about what Fred really valued and wanted in life, what he missed most and what were his goals. As they talked about what Fred wanted and how he felt, Mark reflected back what Fred was saying. As Fred said, “It was like I was seeing what was important to me and when I took a hard look, I could see that I was just drifting along and not taking charge of my life.”

Just the Right Level of Encouragement The next thing you want to look for is whether the life coach is pushing you a bit. Again it's just like with a good personal trainer. A first-rate personal trainer pushes clients to do more but is very careful to keep from injuring or exhausting them. If you feel like you had a great first workout with a personal trainer and the next day you are so sore you can barely move then you probably aren't working with the right person.

The same thing applies with a life coach. You need someone who's going to push you to do your best but won’t pressure you to go beyond your ability to handle change. If you find yourself getting in over your head, working constantly on the assignments the life coach is giving you and getting away from a balanced life, you probably aren't seeing the right life coach for you.

There's a delicate balance in life coaching between pushing clients to do more than they have, and pushing them too hard. After all, you see a life coach because you want to do more and accomplish more than you have been. That involves pushing you beyond your usual boundaries and getting you to challenge the blocks and limiting beliefs that have been holding you back. And that involves a bit of discomfort, just like a good exercise program.

But being pushed way beyond your boundaries and finding your life being taken over is not where you want to go. It may take a couple of sessions but pretty soon it's going to be clear whether or not this particular life coach is the right one for you.

Fred was already close to burnout so Mark didn’t press him to make a lot of changes in his life except for making sure that he had time for himself and for his family. Fred made

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arrangements with his supervisor for times in the evening and on weekends when he didn’t have to immediately answer every phone call or text message. He pointed out that if he had some time to recover, he could do better, more creative work. Fortunately, his supervisor agreed and it turned out to be true. Fred had more energy for work and his performance started to improve.

Motivation A good trainer and a good life coach are both great motivators. A good life coach helps you explore your self, your interests, your beliefs, your hopes, your dreams and your values. Out of this the life coach helps you find the motivation you need to move forward in your life. A good life coach sometimes functions as a cheerleader and reminds you of the things you really value and want in life so you have the motivation you need to make changes and move forward.

A good life coach helps you put together an action plan for getting what you want. Even in the first session your coach will come up with an appropriate assignment for you to carry out between sessions that will help you start moving forward in your life. You're going to be doing some stretching just like in an exercise program. You're going to stretch your vision of what you can do and what you can be. You're going to raise your eyes and look farther into the future and beyond the horizon to make your dreams a reality.

Mark paid attention to what Fred valued and used that to motivate him. One thing that really mattered to Fred was tackling challenging problems and coming up with new solutions. As they explored that, Fred took a hard look at his work and eventually decided to ask for a transfer to a division that was working on cutting edge technology. His request was accepted and he thrived at his new assignment. He was getting a good match between what mattered to him and his work.

A Sense of Excitement Finally, a life coach creates a sense of excitement. Just like good personal trainer gets you excited about doing exercise and making positive changes in your diet. A good life coach can help you find the excitement and meaning in your life. Without that sense of excitement, let's face it, work is just drudgery. The right life coach for you will help you find the excitement you've been missing in life in and work. You know you're going in the right direction because you feel good about yourself and the changes you're making.

You're excited about what's happening in your life and the discoveries you're making about yourself.

Throughout the coaching sessions Fred had a sense of growing excitement. He progressed from being a worn out drudge to an excited employee who also enjoyed his time at home to the maximum. As a result of good life coaching he was having fun at work and at home. And all this happened because his life coach, Mark, paid close attention to what Fred wanted and helped him explore how to get it.

So these are some of the basic qualities of a good life coach. And if you're interested in

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becoming a coach these are some of the qualities that you want to look for in any program that you consider taking.

Guidelines for Coaches If you want to be a good life coach then you need to look for a training program that emphasizes the qualities we have been discussing. As a life coach you want to: Be interested in your clients and what they want.

You want to ask questions that get your clients to open up and explore their goals and values in life.

You need to push some of your clients to test their boundaries and reach higher than they have. At the same time you don’t want to drive them so hard that they are exhausted and overwhelmed.

As a life coach, you are a motivator. You tap into clients’ dreams and values to find out what really motivates them. Then you put them to work to achieve those dreams in their own terms. This one quality is what sets great coaches apart from the ordinary ones.

When clients really want to move forward they can do amazing things.

Setting up an action plan and giving assignments are a central part of life coaching. This has to come from the client. The coach makes suggestions, but the client is the one who puts the program together. And just knowing that in a week or two the coach will ask, “How did your assignment go?” can be the motivator clients need to get things done.

As a coach you generate excitement in sessions by being excited about coaching and exploring your clients’ worlds. Each client is different and if you feel a sense of genuine excitement in learning about that person’s life and dreams, then your clients will “catch” that excitement from you. Life coaching is a wonderful profession that can make a major difference in your clients’ lives and in your own.

Today’s life coach may function as: A guide in achieving personal and business goals A sounding board A source of unconditional support A teacher of life skills A mentor A reality checker A consultant when needed The one who pushes clients to do more than they think they can And that’s the real question today. People come in for life coaching when they feel really lost and confused. Whether they want to do better at work, get a job, start a business, get along better with other people or get balance in their lives, they have one basic question,

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“What the heck is going on?” And the life coach works with them to help them find answers to that question and get them back on track in their lives.

Getting Meaning in Your Life Life coaching is all about self-fulfillment and self-actualization. And it is definitely carried out on the client’s terms. What is a fulfilling life for one person might feel like a special kind of hell to another. Life coaching is based on what the client wants and needs in life, not on what the client’s parents, friends or co-workers think is right. It doesn’t even matter what the coach thinks is a good idea. It is a special opportunity for a person to explore possibilities, put together plans and finally be able to say, "This is what I really want and value. And this is how I am going to get it."

That’s makes life coaching so exciting. Clients become aware that deep inside they have the answers that they are looking for. It is an amazing experience for both client and coach because they are dipping into the essence of humanity and life.

For more information on Dr. Lee Overholser or Dr. Karen Gless, please visit http://relationshipconceptscoachinginstitute.com/ Or simply email us at: info@rcsci.org

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