High achievers and those with serious goals turn to life coaching.

Many people struggle with achieving their goals. Their intentions are good; it’s just that they lack the self-discipline, motivation, and guidance to overcome the hurdles that stand in their way. With the help of life coaching, continuous personal development increases the potential to achieve your goals now instead of someday in the future, capitalize on potential opportunities, and fast track your successes. 

Think of life coaching as being synonymous with personal development and professional development. In many ways, they all have the same objectives in mind. 

No doubt you have your own opinion of what a life coach should be and if they are effective or not. The question is to understand why life coaching is so effective and how it transforms you.

What is a Life Coach?

Life coach meaning will depend on who you talk to. There are many types of coaches in the personal and professional development space. Career coaches, sports coaches, health and wellness coaches, relationship coaches, executive coaches, business coaches, and all life coaches.

The simplest explanation of a life coach is a person who is employed to help others achieve their goals in life. It doesn’t matter the title coaching helps people uncover their barriers to success, overcome their fears, identify their unique talents, craft a vision for the future, and set actionable goals.

Why Hire a Life Coach

Hiring a life coach doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with you, quite the opposite. A life coach helps you identify your strengths, unique talents, and sets you on the road to success. 

There are two important things to consider why most people fail to achieve their goals.

It’s easy to set goals in isolation. Many people make new years resolutions and fail to follow through. That’s because a personal development plan doesn’t support their goals. They lack self-management, make the wrong choices, fail to follow through on their goals, and don’t keep themselves accountable.

Others adopt a wishing, willing, and waiting attitude hoping their life changes for the better. They don’t believe they are worthy of success, or they lack self-awareness. 

Transforming Your Life With the Help of a Life Coach

The three core competencies that transform your life are self Leadership, self-awareness, and self-management. Most people exhibit one or two of these three competencies; very few people manage to develop all three. You need all three to achieve your goals. Here’s why.

Self-Leadership

Highly successful people have a clearly defined vision for the future; they stay true to their values and set SMARTER goals. Without a plan for the future, you will end up somewhere you don’t want to go. “How did I end up here?”

Life coaching helps you develop a personal development plan or professional development plan so that you firmly have a forward path to follow.

Here’s the kicker. Let’s say you have a vision, know your values, and set some goals; this means nothing if you don’t believe in yourself. If you don’t keep yourself accountable, form new habits, make the right choices, or follow through with affirmative action, you will fail. Life coaching helps you transform your life, turning goals into reality.

Self-Awareness

First, you need to uncover your blind spots and the barriers to success to achieve your goals. Uncovering your blind spots is not always a negative experience. Others can see the strengths and talents you don’t see in yourself. It’s difficult to seek feedback on your own because people are reluctant to tell you the truth for fear of pushback. If you do receive feedback and you don’t like it, there’s a chance you will argue back and try to defend yourself.

People back away from feedback because it can be confrontational, especially without a life coach to put the feedback into perspective. When feedback is given anonymously, a life coach can relay information back to you in a safe way for you to hear.

If you lack confidence and self-esteem, life coaching can help you through these barriers to success. With confidence and self-belief, a life coach helps you channel your strengths to focus on self-management, the third competency needed to succeed.

Self-Management

The biggest barrier to success is a lack of self-management. You know you should be taking action towards achieving your goals, but you don’t. You start strong and fall by the wayside as a lack of motivation and procrastination set in. This can happen due to a lack of self-belief (self-awareness). Other times it has to do with a lack of a compelling vision or poorly structured goals (self-leadership).

What is the Role of a Life Coach

A life coach and business coach doesn’t have a magic wand and instantly transform your life. Neither do they “tell you” what to do or do the work for you. Yes, to succeed, you must do some personal development work! 

Great coaching conversations involve lots of listening by the coach. Most people have the answers within. A coach’s role is to bring out that inherent talent in you. A good life coach uses a transformational and transactional approach depending on the individual. Their focus is to help you see yourself differently. This also involves self-coaching.

Self-coaching is listening to yourself and hearing what your inner voice is telling you. If your inner voice is constantly talking to you negatively, life coaching helps you transform your negative thoughts into positives. The power of self-coaching encourages the authentic you to speak up; therefore, your relationship with yourself improves. As you learn about yourself, you also learn about others; thus, your relationships improve.

What Problems do Life Coaches Solve?

This is a common question, and it’s interesting how most people relate life coaching with what problems coaches solve. Life coaching also helps you identify opportunities. Life coaching is less about problems and more about probing for answers to your questions and finding solutions.

If you have a leaky pipe, you call a plumber. If the light switches don’t work, you call an electrician. If you have a toothache, you make an appointment with your dentist. When experiencing a problem in your neighborhood, you call the homeowners association (or ghostbusters!) When you have a personal problem or a problem at work, who do you call? Your mother, father, best friend, or no one at all, and you suffer in silence. The problem with friends and family giving advice is they aren’t trained coaches, and they tend to be biased as they “tell you” what to do.

Life coaching can help you overcome the Monday morning blues, make a career change, define a new focus in life, build confidence, and even start your own business.

Researchers in Positive Psychology discovered that people are more likely to thrive, improve their wellbeing, become more resilient, happier, and develop more meaning working with a life coach. 

The Coaching Investment

Many people know they should hire a life coach, but what stops them? There are three reasons why people hesitate. They think they don’t have the time, it costs more than they think, or aren’t sure how to find the right coach for them.

Don’t have the time?

Really? You can always make more money, but you can’t make more time. There are 86,400 seconds or 1,400 minutes in a day. When it is gone, it is gone, and what you do with that time will give you a result at the end of the day. It may not be the result you want. If you waste that time, the result is nothing except wasted time.

If you use that time wisely to invest in yourself instead of binge-watching Netflix, gossiping with neighbors, or procrastinating, the time invested is returned to you in the future as you achieve your goals. If your goals are important enough, you make time.

It costs less than you think.

When you shop around for price alone, you get what you pay for. Anything you obtain for free has little value because you aren’t invested in the outcome. Think about the number of chocolate bars you eat, movies you watch, spa days and retreats you go to, glasses of wine or beer you drink. None of these indulgences take away the problems you might be experiencing; they will remain, and your life won’t change. 

How do you put a price on your future? Life coaching is never about price; it is always about the value you receive and the return on investment (ROI). ROI can be measured in health, wellness, financial prosperity, happiness, family, a successful business, or a satisfying career.

A good coach will aim for you to become independent as soon as practical. Their role is to coach you to the point where you don’t need them anymore unless, of course, you want to continue to meet them.

Finding the right coach

Not all coaches are equal; many specialize. If you aren’t sure what you need, talk to a life coach in the first instance. A life coach with integrity will be able to steer you in the right direction if they feel they can’t help you.

Choosing the right coach for you will come from your gut. As you speak with a few, you will instinctively know if they are the right fit for you and you are the right fit for them.

Life Coaching Results

Most people dislike being told what to do or when to do it. A great coach understands this develops coaching relationships that allow you to act autonomously and control the decision-making process. A life coach provides the resources and supports the goals you’ve set yourself. They also give you a nudge when needed and keep you accountable to your coaching commitments. At all times, you are in charge.

A good coaching relationship is built on trust and authenticity, allowing open and honest dialog without boundaries or judgment. With trust and confidence, it allows for vulnerability in a safe environment allowing you to flourish.

Behavior change can only happen when you experience autonomous motivation. As a result, you form empowering habits where positive behavior changes last longer. 

The Personal Benefits of life coaching

The personal benefits of life coaching are as wide-ranging as the individuals involved. It is common for clients to report that coaching positively impacted their careers as well as in their personal lives by helping them to:

• Establish and take action towards achieving goals
• Take greater responsibility for their life
• Are accountable for their actions and commitments
• Become more self-reliant
• Increase their confidence levels
• Gain greater job and life satisfaction
• Communicate more effectively 
• Work more easily and productively with their boss, direct reports, and peers

80% of people who receive coaching report increased self-confidence, more than 70% benefit from improved work performance, relationships, and more effective communication skills. 

On a Final Note

The Strategez for Success Coaching Model is unique as it focuses on three core competencies; self-leadership, self-awareness, and self-management. Contact us now or set up your FREE discovery session to determine if Life Coaching, Executive Coaching, or Business Coaching is right for you.

Download the “8 Steps to Overcome Your Struggles” FREE cheat sheet here and start living the life of your choosing.