Past vs. Future: How Life Coaching Helped Me

At one point in my life I accessed a counselor to sort through some personal battles. Every two weeks I would arrive at my counselor’s office, make small talk about the weather, sports, whatever and then we would dig into my life. “Tell me about your childhood, how has your childhood affected your relationships, how did that make you feel?” Don’t get me wrong, these are great questions but they all focused on my past. Yes, I think the past makes you who you are, but at the same time I wanted to focus on here and now and where I want to be rather than where I was.

Then I was introduced to Life Coaching. For those not familiar with Life Coaching it examines what is going on right now, discovering what your obstacles or challenges might be and choosing a course of action to make life what we want it to be. Many successful business leaders, professionals, executives, entrepreneurs and individuals use life coaches to take their lives, careers and business to the next level.

As lifecoach.com puts it life coaching works for multiple reasons:

• Accountability- Most life coaches regardless of where they work have scheduled meetings/calls with their coachee. Think about it, if you work out with a personal trainer at the gym, you work much harder than on your own. Clients take bigger actions, set bigger goals and think bigger when they work with a coach.
• Expertise- The trained life coach knows how to help you set the right goals and structure your personal and professional life to achieve greater productivity with less effort.
• Delivery- A well-trained coach knows how to use the right words so that you are naturally motivated.
• Better goals are set— ones that naturally motivate the client.
• The client develops new skills, which lead to greater success.
• Life coaching provides a structure of support. Left to our own devices, we start out with the best intentions and then, we hit a snag and it can derail us completely or cause a long delay. A life coach can help you quickly break through blocks so that more is accomplished with less struggle and less effort.
• Your life coach is an objective, positive supporter.

For me, life coaching worked best when I came prepared with an issue I wanted work on and an idea of where I wanted to  be. My life coach would then sit down with me and help me set a plan into action, with clear steps and measureable objectives.  Common questions during a session might include: “How have you grown this week? What’s stopping you? What will make the biggest difference here? Does your current habit fully support who you are becoming?” Again these questions focused on the present and future tense. For me life coaching has made a world of difference.

Thankfully, I work for Community Partnerships of Idaho, where there is a plethora of life/leadership coaches I can access, and we are building a coaching culture into our leadership. In the short time that life coaching has been available to us it has already made an impact, not only within our own ranks but in the community as well.

As President John F. Kennedy stated, “things do not happen, things are made to happen.” If you are ready to make things happen I encourage you to sign up to access one of our life coaches by registering here.