Life Coaching
Life coaching can help you clarify your goals, identify the obstacles holding you back, and then come up with strategies for overcoming each obstacle. In creating these strategies, I can help you target your unique skills and gifts. By helping you to make the most of your strengths, I can provide the support you need to achieve long-lasting change.
Who should consider working with a life coach?
Many people seek out life coaches for guidance in navigating a significant life change, such as taking on a new career. In plenty of cases, however, people turn to life coaches simply for help in building a happier, more meaningful life.
There are a number of indications that working with a life coach could be helpful for you. These signs include:
- Frequent irritability
- High levels of stress and/or anxiety
- Inability to break bad habits
- Lack of fulfilment in your social life
- Persistent feeling of dissatisfaction at work
- Sense of blocked creativity
What's the difference between a Life Coach and a Therapist?
Although there may be some overlap in the benefits of working with a life coach and participating in psychotherapy with a licensed therapist, these professionals have distinct roles and serve unique purposes.
Life coaches tend to work with people on future goals and where someone wants to be, helping people remove blocks and limiting beliefs.
Therapists and other mental health professionals focus on healing, treating mental health conditions, and helping people work through trauma and other issues from their past. While working with a life coach may help you to deal with certain unresolved issues, life coaches cannot treat mood disorders, anxiety disorders, addiction, or any other mental health condition.
Why hire a Life Coach?
One of the main benefits of working with a life coach is the ability to gain a fresh, informed perspective on problems that you face. In addition to offering new insight into challenges, a life coach can help you to zero in on negative patterns that could be standing in the way of your success.
Many people view working with a life coach as a means of bridging the gap between your current circumstances and the life you’d like to lead. The following are some of the positive outcomes that could result from joining forces with a life coach:
- Better work/life balance
- Elimination of long-held fears and anxieties
- Enhanced creativity
- Greater financial security
- Improved communication skills
- More satisfying work life
- Stronger relationships with friends and family
Additionally, people frequently pair up with life coaches in order to work through barriers that may interfere with finding a partner/mate. Many people also look to life coaches for help in identifying their passion and carving out their ideal career path.
Since sessions typically take place on a regular basis over a prolonged period of time, life coaches can ensure that their clients are implementing what is necessary to experience significant change.
For a great number of clients, accountability is one of the prime advantages of working with a life coach.
Along with providing the support and motivation essential for maintaining momentum, coaches can observe when a client is stuck or needs to recalibrate their goals. As a result, clients often achieve those goals more quickly and efficiently than they would if working on their own.
What's the impact of life coaching?
While people may report subjective benefits after seeing a life coach, there have also been studies that have shown that life coaching can be beneficial in a number of areas:
- One study found that both individual and group coaching was helpful in reducing procrastination and improving goal attainment. 1
- One review of studies found that health and wellness coaching showed promise for improving self-efficacy and self-empowerment. 2
- A 2020 study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that coaching-based leadership interventions could be effective for enhancing well-being and improving functioning within organisations. 3
- Research also suggests that life coaching can have a range of other positive effects, including improvements in personal insight and improve self-reflection. It may also help improve overall mental health and quality of life. 4
- Losch S, Traut-Mattausch E, Mühlberger MD, Jonas E. Comparing the effectiveness of individual coaching, self-coaching, and group training: How leadership makes the difference. Front Psychol. 2016;7:629. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00629
- Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE): Quality-assessed Reviews [Internet]. York (UK): Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (UK); 1995-. Can life coaching improve health outcomes? A systematic review of intervention studies. 2013.
- Peláez Zuberbuhler MJ, Salanova M, Martínez IM. Coaching-based leadership intervention program: A controlled trial study. Front Psychol. 2020;10:3066. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03066
- Grant AM. The impact of life coaching on goal attainment, metacognition, and mental health. Social Behavior and Personality. 2003;31(3):253-264. doi:10.2224/sbp.2003.31.3.253