Australian Institute of Life Coaches
What is Life Coaching?
Focus areas
Motivation
Growth
Positive psychology
Interpersonal
Emotions
Stress Management
Life Coaching is an exciting career that gives you the opportunity to help people succeed in their lives.
We all know people who help others achieve their goal, inspire friends and family to persevere in the face of adversity and refuse to allow them to wallow in the seeming security of a mediocre job or life. They inspire others to greatness by gentle persuasion, constant encouragement or, at times, a more confronting inducement. Perhaps you know someone like that? Or perhaps you are someone like that which is why you are reading this publication?
It’s a myth that the reason so many people never accomplish their goals is because they don’t really want them or don’t want them badly enough! Life coaches understand that. People use life coaches for the same reason they use sports coaches or personal trainers - they want someone to work with them, to encourage them, to push them. It’s easy to find excuses for not exercising when you don’t have someone to push you - not as easy when your personal trainer shows up at your door three times a week wearing workout gear!
Life coaching can cover virtually every aspect of a person’s life – everything that they might aspire to. Life Coaching is helpful for career direction and development, management of work and life affairs, leadership endeavours, business start-up and entrepreneurialism, life skills, personal fulfilment, life-balance and the acquisition of
specific skills or knowledge.
Life coaching can be this adaptable because it is not concerned with delivery and specialised training. It focuses on enablement, reflection and empowerment, whereby individuals decide and discover their own real-life journey.
In brief:
What do Life Coaches do?
As a coach, your job is to provide objective, unbiased feedback to clients. Yours is not to judge or determine what clients should do or what they need, but to act as a facilitator so that they can figure it out for themselves. Friends and family members, well-meaning as they may be, often think that they know what is best for someone else. However their ideas can conflict with what the individual believes is best for him or herself. Hence Life Coaches free their clients from expectations imposed on them by others.
People sometimes spend their entire lives doing what they are told they should do, or what their parents or society expects of them. What about doing what they really want to do? Some people have been caught up in this cycle for so long that they are not even sure what they want. But they can still find out. Life coaches do not have an agenda. They leave that up to the client.
In addition, Life Coaches help people who are trying to do too much and guide them towards what they would really like to be doing and what gives them the most satisfaction. Often clients find that the activities that currently occupy their day are not the ones they are want to be involved in at all!
Another big issue in life coaching is helping people prioritise, helping them to find balance in their busy lives. Coaches report that a lot of their clients are already successful people, many whose upper level positions in the corporate world have left them feeling isolated. These clients want someone who is both willing to listen and who will provide honest, sometimes blunt, feedback. They need to hear what employees and subordinates won’t tell them which is why a lot of executives are turning to personal Life Coaches.
Is Life Coaching the right career for me?
Coaching is unlike training, consultancy, advising or providing a professional service in which work is completed on behalf of a client. The qualities required for good coaching are different from those found in these other discipline areas.
Typically good coaches will use and follow these principles:
Consider your answers to the following questions:
Get in touch today to find out more about our courses!
We all know people who help others achieve their goal, inspire friends and family to persevere in the face of adversity and refuse to allow them to wallow in the seeming security of a mediocre job or life. They inspire others to greatness by gentle persuasion, constant encouragement or, at times, a more confronting inducement. Perhaps you know someone like that? Or perhaps you are someone like that which is why you are reading this publication?
It’s a myth that the reason so many people never accomplish their goals is because they don’t really want them or don’t want them badly enough! Life coaches understand that. People use life coaches for the same reason they use sports coaches or personal trainers - they want someone to work with them, to encourage them, to push them. It’s easy to find excuses for not exercising when you don’t have someone to push you - not as easy when your personal trainer shows up at your door three times a week wearing workout gear!
Life coaching can cover virtually every aspect of a person’s life – everything that they might aspire to. Life Coaching is helpful for career direction and development, management of work and life affairs, leadership endeavours, business start-up and entrepreneurialism, life skills, personal fulfilment, life-balance and the acquisition of
specific skills or knowledge.
Life coaching can be this adaptable because it is not concerned with delivery and specialised training. It focuses on enablement, reflection and empowerment, whereby individuals decide and discover their own real-life journey.
In brief:
- Life coaching aims to draws out a person’s potential rather than input knowledge from outside
- It develops rather than imposes
- It reflects rather than directs
- Effective Life Coaches enable people rather than train them
- Life coaching is reflective and flexible - it allows for personal transition on an individual basis
- Life Coaching makes no assumptions - it’s not judgmental, nor is it prescriptive or instructional
- Empathy is central to the coaching process
- Good Life Coaching seeks to help the other person gain a better understanding of him or herself
What do Life Coaches do?
As a coach, your job is to provide objective, unbiased feedback to clients. Yours is not to judge or determine what clients should do or what they need, but to act as a facilitator so that they can figure it out for themselves. Friends and family members, well-meaning as they may be, often think that they know what is best for someone else. However their ideas can conflict with what the individual believes is best for him or herself. Hence Life Coaches free their clients from expectations imposed on them by others.
People sometimes spend their entire lives doing what they are told they should do, or what their parents or society expects of them. What about doing what they really want to do? Some people have been caught up in this cycle for so long that they are not even sure what they want. But they can still find out. Life coaches do not have an agenda. They leave that up to the client.
In addition, Life Coaches help people who are trying to do too much and guide them towards what they would really like to be doing and what gives them the most satisfaction. Often clients find that the activities that currently occupy their day are not the ones they are want to be involved in at all!
Another big issue in life coaching is helping people prioritise, helping them to find balance in their busy lives. Coaches report that a lot of their clients are already successful people, many whose upper level positions in the corporate world have left them feeling isolated. These clients want someone who is both willing to listen and who will provide honest, sometimes blunt, feedback. They need to hear what employees and subordinates won’t tell them which is why a lot of executives are turning to personal Life Coaches.
Is Life Coaching the right career for me?
Coaching is unlike training, consultancy, advising or providing a professional service in which work is completed on behalf of a client. The qualities required for good coaching are different from those found in these other discipline areas.
Typically good coaches will use and follow these principles:
- Listening is more important than talking
- What motivates people must be understood
- Everyone is capable of achieving more
- A person’s past is no indication of their future
- People’s beliefs about what is possible for them are their only limits
- Coaches don’t provide the answers
- Coaching does not include criticizing people
- All coaching is completely confidential
- Some people’s needs cannot be met by coaching and coaches recognise clients with these needs.
Consider your answers to the following questions:
- Are you committed to living a fulfilling and successful life?
- Do you love working with people?
- Are you committed to helping people work through their challenges?
- Are you a good listener?
- Do you have a particular group of people that you are committed to making a difference to?
- Is your attitude ‘I’ll see how it goes’, or will you do everything in your power to be the best possible coach, to promote your coaching business and to make it as successful as you can?
- Are you prepared to invest the energy and money in order to make a well informed decision?
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