What is Life Coaching?

Although we all know how to live - in the sense of survive - more or less successfully, not all of us know how to live life to the full, to get the most out of it, to feel that we're really living and not just existing.

Knowing how to live well is a skill that can be learned. And, as with most things, it's much easier to learn if you have someone to teach you some techniques, help you to overcome the initial obstacles and encourage you to stick with it through the hard times in order to achieve your dreams.

Life coaching is very much like any other coaching: it is support, guidance and encouragement to succeed. It takes the form of regular, one-to-one sessions between you and your coach, either in person or over the telephone. Each session lasts 45 minutes, an hour or whatever length of time you have agreed between you. During the session, you discuss your goals and how you're going to achieve them, and you report back on the progress you've made since the last session. Your coach helps you to focus your ideas and to come up with new ones that you might never have considered before. He/she believes in you 100% and is completely committed to your success. Your coach will never criticise you or tell you what to do; his/her job is to give you the tools and the confidence to do whatever you want to do.

Who can benefit from life coaching?

Basically, if you're not living your dream right now, you can benefit from life coaching.

Different clients benefit from different aspects of life coaching and your coach will concentrate on the areas where you need most support.

For example, some people are confident in their abilities but feel constrained by their circumstances. In this case, the coach will work on showing the client the wide range of options he/she really has. Perhaps a woman with young children feels trapped at home. Her coach will open her eyes to all the fulfilling activities she could be enjoying while still being a good mother.

Other people lack confidence and are reluctant to apply for the jobs they want or to try new things, for fear of being rejected. For these clients, just having a coach behind them to spur them on is a huge help. More than that, however, the coach can offer the client a new perspective on his/her situation and techniques for changing negative thinking and building his/her confidence.

Many people find they can make the changes they want in their lives after 4-6 sessions of life coaching. Others like to retain their coach for a few months, but life coaching is intended to be a shot in the arm rather than a long-term crutch. If you find yourself needing prolonged support, you would probably get more benefit from psychotherapy (which, by the way, is also becoming more and more popular in the UK as people realise they can lose the chains that have bound them since childhood).

However, life coaching is always a good place to start because you will certainly get some benefit from it - and it might turn out to be all you need to inspire and motivate you to make your dreams come true.

What sort of tools and techniques do life coaches offer their clients?

It depends on the coach. Each life coach brings a different set of tools and techniques, depending on his/her background and training. Some coaches use neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), others use Transactional Analysis (TA), some use a mixture, others use different approaches. All can be equally valid and valuable.

How is life coaching different from counselling and psychotherapy?

It's true that there are small grey areas between these three but life coaching is NOT counselling or psychotherapy.

There are many definitions and the distinctions are not always clear but here is an attempt at differentiation:

Life coaching focuses on building a bright and beautiful future for you. It is about helping you to achieve your goals, to move from where you are to where you want to be. This is suitable for people who are basically not unhappy but who feel stuck or frustrated because they can't seem to make things happen.

Counselling is about dealing with a specific problem or issue in your life. It helps you through a specific difficult patch in your life and aims to find a workable solution to the situation as quickly as possible.

Psychotherapy goes much deeper and is a longer-term therapy than either life coaching or counselling. This is about not just finding a way to hold it together but resolving the issues at root. It is for people who are angry, sad and/or scared as a result of the past.

If you start work with a life coach and it becomes apparent that you would benefit more from counselling or psychotherapy, a good coach will tell you this and point you in the right direction to find what you need.

How much does life coaching cost?

It depends on the coach, of course, but it's generally not cheap as such. However, it is a great investment and contacting a coach carries virtually no risk whatsoever. You and/or the coach should be able to tell very quickly - probably in the initial assessment, which is normally free - whether or not life coaching would help you. If it wouldn't, you move on. If it would, the benefits it brings will far outweigh what you have paid for your coaching. What price would you pay for the life of your dreams? (You'll find that life coaching costs a lot less than that!)