Life Coaching: Living the Life You Were Meant to Live

by Terri Vought

Do you ever sit and daydream about what you wish your life was like? Are you content with your current life, but at times find yourself asking, "What if?" In your younger years, nothing could separate you from your aspirations, and yet, somewhere along the way, maybe life threw a couple of curveballs and you lost track of your goals. Life has become a day-to-day game of survival—the highlight of your week is 5:00 p.m. on Friday. Oftentimes we don’t take the time (or don’t have the time) to consider the future. If you want to make changes but you’re not sure where to even start, then consider consulting with a life coach.

The ultimate goal of obtaining life coaching is to become the best "you" possible. A life coach is similar to a sports coach in that a sports coach helps the athlete to overcome problem areas and achieve his or her goals. Life coaching offers clients similar support. A life coach can help you to set goals, and give you the support of an objective, non-judgmental professional who will provide encouragement, advice, and strategy to achieve your goals.

A life coach can help you to learn and grow as you make the necessary changes to create a better life for yourself. I believe everyone has the capacity to live a healthier and happier life, and I believe a life coach can help you to design a strategic plan and help keep you focused as you work toward the end result. You can finally stop telling yourself "shoulda, coulda, woulda" and live the life you were meant to live. In this article, I will discuss what life coaching is, how it works, and the benefits of having a life coach.

Evolution of Life Coaching

Life coaching first appeared in earnest during the 1990s with the recognition that there were a large number of individuals who could benefit from personal growth and development services of this nature, but had few choices outside of a therapist’s office. As the 90s progressed, life coaching became a common benefit offered to management within a wide variety of corporate and public entities. The practice has continued to evolve and take on new perspectives as the number and variety of clientele seeking life coaching has expanded significantly over the last decade. As life coaching has evolved, it has become both accessible and desirable to those outside of the corporate environment.

One of the most attractive aspects of life coaching is the convenience. Most life coaches work through tele-coaching—where coach and client speak by phone. Tele-coaching provides both the coach and client with almost unlimited portability. This concept was developed by Thomas Leonard, who also founded Coach University in 1992. At Coach University the students are trained to be coaches through classes taught by tele-conference. Around the same time, The Coaches Training Institute was founded by Laura Whitworth. Students of The Coaches Training Institute are trained through a series of weekend workshops and follow-up training by telephone. In 1995, Whitworth founded the Personal and Professional Coaches Association (PPCA). In 1996, Leonard founded the International Coach Federation (ICF), which later merged with PPCA.

Today the ICF has over 14,000 members in more than 80 countries. The ICF certifies training organizations that provide coach training. The ICF credential ensures "that a coach has committed significant time and resources" to his or her coaching education.

How Life Coaching Works

Life coaching usually begins with a consultation session in which the client and coach examine the client’s current life and where he or she would like to make changes. This involves asking the client a lot of questions to get a clear picture of the desired end result. A life coach usually starts by asking the client to visualize his or her life if things were different, and then goes one step further to examine how the client would want things to be different.

For example, maybe a client fantasizes about a career change that will require a major move—a coach will take the time to examine how these changes will affect the rest of the client’s life. The coach and client will also identify the hurdles ahead and the desired end results. The client and coach then identify the immediate changes the client can make toward these goals, and many questions are asked to explore the many facets of change. From all of this information, the coach and client develop a strategic action plan. The plan usually ends up being a timeline that depicts a step-by-step process. After the coach and client have developed the strategic plan, it’s the coach’s job to provide structure for the client to take action. In addition, a coach can provide the client with some level of accountability.

As the client takes action and makes changes, he or she becomes empowered and more self-confident. Tasks that were once perceived to be challenging become exciting and more easily achieved. With each accomplishment, the client becomes more self-assured and ready to tackle the next life change. The timeline provides clients with a visual aid of where they are and where they want to be. A life coach can help the client to maintain focus throughout the strategic plan. Life coaching is about finding your authentic self, and this is really what empowers people to become driven.

Life coaching is a process. The number and frequency of sessions required are based on the client’s individual needs. Most life coaches will schedule phone sessions, while some coaches allow clients to call or email at any time. Ideally, the client spends a few minutes prior to each session making an agenda or outline to identify challenges, opportunities, and the focus for the session. This is only the basic structure to life coaching. It’s not uncommon for an individual to get all he or she needs from an introductory session. Usually a client can achieve results after one to three months. As a general rule, the more sessions a client attends, the better the results.

Some life coaches also offer workshops to the public, which can be very beneficial. My company, V & V Associates, offers workshops that cover various topics. Some of these include:

• Time and energy management
• Working with difficult people
• Life purpose
• Transitioning through change
• Project management training
• Coaching approach to supervision
• Leadership development
• Team-building

These are just a few of the workshop subjects offered. The workshops are meant to be fun and enlightening. The activities tend to be interactive rather than just having someone sit and talk at you for an hour. Customized workshops are available as well. Workshops are usually tailored to the client’s desired outcome. Ideally, the client at least has fun and comes away from the workshop feeling enlightened and empowered by the knowledge he or she has gained.

Why Do People Seek a Life Coach?

A life coach can help the client develop in many aspects of life—spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, social, and even aesthetic. The most common reasons why people seek a life coach are:

• Time management issues
• Career or business changes
• Relationships (e.g., children, marriage)
• Difficulties with social interaction

Individuals seek a life coach for change because they are dissatisfied with a certain aspect or aspects of their lives. For example, a client may come to me with career goals, but may not be sure how to get from the current situation to the desired circumstances. A life coach can really listen to a client and provide honest feedback. Sometimes a client may not have fully considered all of the obstacles before him or her, which can be intimidating for many people. As a life coach, I try to provide the client with an honest opinion of what the best plan of action is to get from point A to point B. A life coach doesn’t tell the client what to do, but instead provides guidance and helps the client to see the many facets (good and bad) of his or her life.

Life Coaching vs. Therapy

Although life coaching contains aspects of disciplines such as psychology, sociology, career counseling, and mentoring, a life coach is not a therapist. The focus in life coaching is not why you don’t have what you want or the issues that are keeping you from it. The focus is on what you are making important.

It’s also about the actions you are taking now and identifying future actions. Therapy is focused on correcting problems that are so deeply ingrained in an individual’s life that they prevent a person from moving forward. Through coaching, clients can find ways to resolve past issues via their own individual method and look forward to the future.

A life coach is not going to provide therapy—if the client has deep emotional wounds, life coaching is not going to help in ruminating over the past. Typically, the life coach might touch on past losses or disappointments to evaluate what went wrong, but spending an excessive amount of time on the past is counterproductive to the life coaching process.

Life coaching is future-focused and interactive whether it’s for business or personal growth. The client is the driver and ultimately the client is his or her own life manager. The client’s responsibility is to make choices.

A life coach is not going to tell clients what to do, but rather will make suggestions or ask questions to help clients identify why they make the choices they do. It’s up to the client to set goals. Your life coach cannot tell you how to run your business, how to live your life, or how to lose weight.

Each individual already holds most of the answers; a life coach, through professional training, knows which questions to ask, what to listen for, and how to draw out the answers within each person.

Together, the life coach and client can choose where the client will focus energy, what the client will work on, and how the desired goal will be achieved. A coach may suggest assignments or exercises to help the client move through the process, but the choices and positive results belong to the client.

A life coach can become the client’s biggest fan and greatest resource. Having a life coach can provide the client with a valuable source of strength, insight, and clarity as he or she becomes clear on the authentic self, the desired results, and the plan of action.

Finding a Life Coach

The easiest part of the life coaching process is finding a coach who is more than willing to provide you with services. A recent Google search for "life coach" yielded 7,450,000 hits, ranging from life coaches with no formal education to highly educated professionals. The best way to find a life coach is through word of mouth. Try asking people you trust for referrals.

Also, try using the ICF or Coach University websites. Both websites offer a search engine that searches based on personal and professional goals. Compile a list of coaches who are of interest and research them via the web. Often, a life coach’s website can provide enough information to help determine whether that person would be a good match for you or not.

Once the field is narrowed down, try searching for credentials. Usually the more educated the coach is, the better. Because life coaching is not regulated, life coaches will have varying degrees of educational backgrounds.

It’s important once you have identified a few candidates to conduct phone conversations with each of them. In order for the coaching to be successful, the client-coach chemistry is crucial to the coaching process. Once a good match is found, you will start to live the life you were meant to.