The time that I told my parents that I had hired a life coach they were puzzled. A life-what?
Even if coaching has known a huge growth during the past decades and has become a real thing, there is still quite a lot of confusion about it.
There are many definitions out there of what a life coach is, each more complete (or complicated, some would say) than the last, so I won’t bore you with a Wikipedia style explanation. Instead, I would use one of the most powerful tools that life coaches use – the metaphor.
Think about walking into a library full of books and manuals. The information in there is potentially infinite and at your entire disposal. You just have to go around and look for what you want. But what happens if you don’t know where the manual that you are looking for is stored? Or even worse if you don’t even know which book you are searching for? The search will definitely become frustrating, and you will most probably end up giving up on it, tired of wondering around pointless.
Now imagine if instead of walking in there by yourself, there would be someone helping you to first understand which book is exactly that you are looking for. Or would help you clarify which is the best sequence of books you need to learn a specific subject. Or even better, would turn on the light just for you to discover that there are more sections in that library.
This is basically what a life coach does. Coaching is based on the principle that you are, like a library, full of endless resources, and that you are the person that better knows what’s best for you.
In line with this idea, the approach between coach and coachee is absolutely equal and even. The coach is not there to teach you something, you are the one getting your own lessons from the journey. Unlike other disciplines like psychology, mentoring or counseling, coaching avoids sharing personal opinion, giving suggestions or advices. The coach simply asks powerful and thought-provoking questions that make you dive deep, gain awareness and widen perspective.
The coach helps you to become conscious about your resources; to create your own toolbox to call upon in case of need; to clearly define what you want to achieve; to design an action plan with intermediate steps to reach your goal; to get to know you better.
The benefits of coaching are potentially infinite. I have seen first hand how revolutionary and transformative a process can be in many aspects. The magic about coaching is that the result of one action can easily impact many other areas of your life and I invite you to try it for yourself.
Harangue’s over.
Ball in your court now.
If you are up for it, click below and book a discovery call with me. Don’t worry – the first one is on me!
