Life coaching provides a form of support and challenge that fosters personal and/or professional development. This starts with the formulation of goals. In fact, the first goal of coaching may be to envision a potential life that fills one with a sense of passion, purpose and meaning. An authentic goal is not about living up to other people’s expectations or what you think you ought to achieve. It is about what you really want. A coach will then help you to achieve and even exceed this vision.
Of course, this won’t happen by itself. Once you have established a compelling vision and set of goals for your life, a life coach will help you devise a practical plan for how to make it real. There is work to be done. This will draw on your current strengths and talents and help you stretch further. It will also entail identifying and addressing obstacles (both internal and external) that stand in the way.
The general areas that life coaching can help with include:
- Work/career/professional direction and development.
- Relationships; including love, friendships, parenting, family, co-workers
- Cultivating confidence
- Managing stress and the hectic nature of life and finding balance
- Overcoming destructive habits and cultivating constructive ones
Life coaching is different to psychotherapy and counselling in that it focuses on the future and encourages personal or professional development, whereas psychotherapy and counselling are concerned with emotional or mental health and well-being and pay more attention to what has happened in the past in order to deal with current difficulties.
For our life coaching services, please see the list of our life coaches – Becky Hall, Michael Dewan-Herrick, Phoebus Ebbini.