The concept of life coaching -

Life coaching is a direction of coaching that involves the client achieving his personal goals, solving everyday problems, and creating an atmosphere of harmony in life. Those who have not delved into the understanding of what life coaching is, consider a coach to be someone like a psychotherapist.

But in reality, this specialist works in a fundamentally different way, although they may have common goals. Thus, the psychologist delves into the client’s past, trying to solve his current problems. In turn, the coach does not focus on the past, his work is the present and the future of a person.

He, as a coach, helps his ward to achieve the form that will help him win the championship. And he does not need to know why the client currently has problems with physical training.

Also, a life coach is often confused with a mentor, but here too there are fundamental differences. Mentors share their own experience, transfer their knowledge, while a coaching specialist helps to reveal and realize the potential of the client himself. This is not training, but cooperation.

Education of a live coach

For a life coach, it is very important to have knowledge in various areas in order to help the client harmonize his life. The specialist helps to develop in all directions in order to achieve balance and improve the quality of life, it is about career, and about family, and about health, and about personal development.

Therefore, a coach must understand psychology, business and other areas. At the moment, there are no universities where you can get a higher education in the “coach” specialty, but professionals in this niche often have a diploma in psychology, law, and economics.

There are specialized courses for coaching professionals. In order to provide qualified support to a client, a life coach must have a lot of knowledge and skills, which is why life coaching training lasts longer than courses in other areas of coaching. The international organization ICF deals with the certification of coaches. Life coaching training includes 60-200 hours of theory and 100 hours of practice.

In what situations do you need the help of a life coach

As we have already said, a life coach is not a psychologist, not a psychiatrist, not a mentor. But this is a specialist who is able to provide you with professional support in solving various life issues. Here is a partial list of situations in which you should contact a coach:

Loss of landmarks in life.
Crisis – in the family, in professional activities, in finances.
Monotony in everyday life.
The futility of trying to achieve the goal.
The feeling that some “brick” is missing in life.
Lack of feeling of joy, satisfaction, happiness.
A constant state of stress.
Problem situations of a personal nature, in the team, with management.
Difficulty communicating with other people.
Striving to improve personal effectiveness.
Lack of prospects at the current place of employment.

Joint work of coach and client

The idea of life coaching is that the coach helps a person achieve a goal by using the client’s potential and own resources. That is, work on oneself, increasing self-esteem, developing self-confidence is envisaged. Therefore, it is important that the client is ready to take responsibility for changes in his life, to work on himself to achieve the goal.

The main thing happens not even during sessions – but between sessions. That is, during the session, the coach and the client determine the direction to achieve the goal.

But in order to achieve the desired result, a person must act. And it works in the intervals between sessions, so coaching is the joint work of the coach and the client, and not a one-sided process. The tasks of the coach are as follows:

Motivate the client.
Help focus on goals.
Activate the client’s actions.
Support in moments of difficulties in achieving the goal.
To help reject stereotypes.
Help the client to develop himself.

How much time does a life coach take?

How much time does a life coach need to help a person implement his ideas and achieve his goals? Everything is individual. On average, a coach works with one client for 1-6 months. At the same time, the specialist meets with the ward about once a week. The duration of each session is about 60 minutes.

The long term of the coach’s work with the client is due to the fact that in the process of learning, a person’s thinking changes radically, new skills and behavioral strategies are formed. All this cannot happen quickly.

In the process of moving towards the goal, a person must be ready for failures, which are inevitable. A life coach will help the client to accept failure, identify his mistakes.

There may also be moments of “inhibition” in the work, which arise as a result of natural resistance to changes. But, after overcoming this period, a person will be able to achieve his goals and experience pleasant changes in his life.