What Is A Life Coach? – The Top 5 Things You Need To Know

Life coaching. Ever wondered what it’s all about? Have you ever asked yourself `What is a life coach‘ or ‘what does a life coach do‘? Let’s explore the TOP 5 THINGS you need to know about life coaching, and whether it’s right for you.

What is life coaching?

Life coaching defined as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.”

To sum up, life coaching can range from relationship and health coaching to life skills and career coaching. A rapidly increasing number of people credit their new-found motivation and productivity to life coaching. Clients look for guidance in confidence, career change, self-worth and esteem, work-life balance, relationships, finding your purpose, health, emotional intelligence and much more. 

Furthermore, it is far more common than you think. As well as ordinary folk, a lot of the most successful business leaders, entrepreneurs and CEOs in the world have hired coaches. Past coaching clients include Princess Diana, Nelson Mandela, Hugh Jackman and Serena Williams, to name a few.

Life coaching has become so popular that it is offered as a subject by many universities throughout the globe, including postgraduate and masters level courses. 

What is a life coach?

There is no one specific definition of a life coach. Their service and focus can vary depending on their clients’ individual goals. But if you were to define it, it would sound something like this: A life coach is a trained professional whose job it is to help you decide what your goals are and then to create an actionable plan to surpass them.  

Coaches will usually work on productivity in professional, personal or business situations. Besides, a coach can also be qualified to coach as a direct result of years of experience within an area of expertise. Many find it helpful to have a coach with knowledge of their industry to ensure a better understanding of the issues they are facing. Furthermore, life coaches can be motivational speakers, consultants, devil’s advocates that work with their clients objectively. However, the list of the roles they play extends far past that. Coaches are hired more and more frequently to help people with life/career change, personal goals and self-development. So what is a life coach? In short, a life coach is a professional who sets you on the track that leads you to your best self in work, life, and most commonly, both.

What happens in a life coaching session?

Coaching is a creative partnership between a coach and client. Although sessions vary due to the client’s goals and the coach’s approach, usually a structured format is adhered to. The following is a loose chronological example of how a coach may work with you:

• Establishing a coaching relationship of transparency, honesty and often vulnerability between both parties.
• The client’s goals are established and defined.
• The coach designs a custom plan for exceeding the defined goals based on the findings of the initial session, followed by any other revelations throughout the coaching. The plan is custom to the client’s personality and objectives. The coach encourages the client to adhere to this tailored plan.
• A coach adopts their skills and expertise specifically to help their clients reach their goals.
• The coach continues to inspire and motivate the client on their journey of self-discovery and growth.
• The life coach nurtures client accountability to increase productivity.

Sessions may vary depending on the coach, the medium of communication, their methods, and how many sessions you’ve received. Above all, a coach will adjust their methods in this dynamic relationship. This allows a coach to thoroughly understand where a client is coming from and where they want to be.

What is the difference between a life coach and therapy?

There is a common misconception that life coaching and therapy are the same, but with different titles. However, they are two very different services. Yes, both services have many similarities. But, life coaching is quite a distinct service that does not administer therapy. 

First of all, it is crucial to know when and why you should hire a coach or a therapist. Below, we’ll review therapy and coaching, and see what situations they are most suitable for:   

What is Therapy

Therapy is a long-term process in which a qualified healthcare professional works to diagnose and resolve a client’s problematic beliefs, behaviours, relationship issues, feelings or physical reactions. 

It focuses on past traumas and issues to change self-destructive habits, repair and improve relationships or cope with painful emotions.

What is life coaching

A coach, who is not a healthcare professional, helps a client identify obstacles and problematic behaviours and clarifies their goals. As a result, the coach creates an action plan to achieve the desired outcome. 

The process takes the client’s current starting point as an acceptable neutral ground and is more action-based from that point onward.

How do I know if I need life coaching or therapy

Life coaches and therapists set different expectations for clients. Yes, some issues highlighted may be similar, but the work of these professionals is not the same. To sum up, they are two very different services and are not to be confused.

In life, we go through various situations that need help. Life coaching is not right for you if what you need is therapy or counselling. If a client is suffering from a mental illness or another issue, then they should consider seeking help from a therapist or a counsellor first. After that, they can then look at hiring a life coach.

Another thing to remember is that if you want someone to tell you exactly what to do, then life coaching may not be the right solution for you. It is a coach’s job to guide you so that you can make your own decisions to progress forward. Therefore, a coach will not hand you your answers. It’s up to you to figure that part out.

And lastly, you need to be able to commit to making changes, taking action and working on self-improvement. Because of that, if you don’t want to develop your thinking and immerse yourself in positive progression, then life coaching will not be of value to you. The hardest part is deciding to change, so it’s important to honour the choice your past-self made to improve.

Now we know when we do and don’t need a life coach. So let’s take a look at what benefits life coaching can offer us and who exactly gets to reap those rewards.

Is life coaching for me?

Life coaching isn’t for everyone. But, and there’s always a but, if you have ever had any of the following thoughts, or similar, then life coaching will be of value to you:

• I lack clarity in my true purpose.
• I want to be a more effective leader.
• My relationships lack passion and excitement.
• I have yet to reach my health and fitness goals.

Do any of those statements ring true to you? If so, then read on and find out more about the benefits of coaching:

• It helps clients to define, refine and achieve their goals.
• Clients become highly motivated and in turn, gain confidence which spreads like a smile. Domino effect!
• Accountability with a coach helps to regenerate lost energy, improve your outlook and reach your goals.
• Clients can cultivate and develop their emotional intelligence and in turn, open up a world of determination, enterprise, energy, passion and confidence. As a result, clients can effectively deal with obstacles, challenges and fears, no matter how big or small!

And, the list goes on

• Achieve financial independence and security.
• Bag the perfect job.
• Work-life balance.
• Become better at communicating, maybe using the Jorai Window.
• Build better relationships in business and life.
• Career change.
• Clear mental and physical clutter.
• Design and implement successful strategies.
• Find the best relationship in love.
• Get promoted.
• Growing your business
• Identify what your passions truly are.
• Returning to work.
• Start a business.
• Walk away from negative people and situations.
• And more…

So it’s clear that life coaching has an infinite list of benefits. But who are the people who reap the rewards? Let’s find out:

Who gets life coaching?

There’s no one specific type of ‘person’ who hires a life coach. In contrast, it is a service that is relevant to different people from various backgrounds who are at different stages in their lives and careers.

Life coaching clients include job seekers, leaders, career changers or transitioners, executives, retirees, graduates, home-makers, managers, returner parents, CEOs, college students, entrepreneurs and just about everyone in between. 

Each coaching session is customised to the client, as no two clients are or will be the same. In short, life coaching itself is so broad a topic, that coaches specialise in certain areas of interest and expertise.

You can narrow the division between where you are now with where you want to be with the help of a life coach. Consider that a coach is there to open your mind up to bigger thinking and positive progress. But what types of life coaches are there? How do we know which one to choose?

Let’s break down who they are and what they do:

If you’re searching for a coach for either personal or business needs, there is a wide range of coaches available to you. Here’s a small snippet of the different sorts of life coaching on offer that‘s best suited to your circumstance.

Online coaching

More and more people are switching to video coaching. But what does this mean? It means that a coach can conduct their sessions with clients via video call. Online video coaching offers many benefits that traditional meetings do not.

• No commuting time or costs
• Meet anywhere or anytime that suits both coach and client
• A wider range of global coaches and expertise available to you
• Have a free discovery call with a coach before you hire them to see if you’re a good match
• Your payments, schedule, call history and interactions all in one place.

With the above perks, it means that you can spend more time on the things that really matter and doing what you love.