~ Life Coach
Anybody with the passion, the willingness and the heart to help people can become a life coach. The problem though is that they are not enough to make you a qualified more so an effective life coach. You need training and mentoring. But life coach training can cost with range of $3000 to $6000.
What if you do not have that much money? Does this mean your dream of becoming a life coach is over? Well, not quite. There are ways of having an affordable life coach training.
Scholarship
Just like in schooling, you can also avail of a scholarship to help you pursue your dreams of becoming a life coach. There are different companies out their who are willing to help you as long as you are qualified and have the eagerness to be one.
One approach is if you are currently working as an employee of a certain company. You can inquire whether you have scholarships or programs that would provide you with what you need. Most companies nowadays provide such privileges to their employees since the whole company can benefit from life coaching.
If a scholarship program or training is not existent in your company, you could bring it up with your boss or bosses and suggest the need for one. Most often than not, these programs will be 100% free of charge.
Another approach to this is applying for a scholarship to any of the top coaching academies. One of these institutions is the International Coach Academy.
International Coach Academy is one of the world leaders when it comes coach training. They provide quality, affordable and accessible training. The Professional Coach Training Program they have is certified by the International Coach Federation. Best of all they provide scholarships to people who deserve it. Their scholarship program gives scholars a 50% off from the training fees.
Looking For A Mentor
Another way of having an affordable life coach training is by having a mentor. If you are determined enough, you can look for somebody, a life coach, who is willing to take you as an apprentice. This may not be formal training but it does not mean that it will be less effective. Always remember that experience is better than any teacher or trainer and your life coach mentor has this.
Of course it is not that easy to find someone who, in just a snap of your fingers, would jump in and become your mentor. You need to gain their trust as well as you need to show that you really are determined to become one. A "real" life mentor, once has seen that you have the passion and determination, will help you in any way he or she can.
Self-Training
If none of the above works for you and you still would not want to give up, then this is your last resort – self training. Self training would require you to have different source of information one of which are the books. There are a lot of books that pertain to life coaching but you need not to buy one. These books are readily available in your local libraries.
Another source of information is the Internet. The information superhighway has a plethora of information regarding life coaching. You just need to be cautious though of which information you would use or not depending on where you got them. Choose sources on the Internet that are credible.
Becoming A Life Coach
Becoming a life coach is not as easy as it seems. And the truth of the matter is, life coaching is not for everybody. A person needs to posses some particular characteristics or traits required before he or she is considered to have the potential of becoming a life coach.
Why A Life Coach
Why indeed do people want to become life coaches? There are two possible answers to this question. First is that being a life coach is very rewarding when talking about money. If you are an effective life coach with a constant stream of clients flowing in then you can rake in a lot of money.
The second answer on why people want to become life coaches is that life coaches can get a feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction. As a life coach, you have the ability to make lifestyle changes on your clients. You can help them develop and improve. You become a part of your client's growth and achieve great results in his or her life.
Characteristics of a Potential Life Coach
As have been stated life coaching is not for everybody. A person must have certain qualifying characteristics for him or her to be able to become an effective one.
First and foremost, the most essential characteristic of a potential life coach is the eagerness to help people. In the job of life coaching, a genuine urge to help will be very important for the effectiveness of life coaching. Without this eagerness, a life coach will just easily lose patience and give up on their clients.
Second, a potential life coach must be a good listener. If you are the type of person who talks and talks 24/7 then life coaching is not for you. As a life coach, it is very important to listen to your clients. You will get all the information that you need through your conversations and if you do not know how to listen, then you will not be able to make an effective program for the client.
Third, a potential life coach has the characteristic of the willingness to be trained. A person can't just become a life coach just because of his or her eagerness to become one. A life coach will have to undergo several trainings to be able to learn different methods that can be utilized during sessions with clients. The training process takes time and may take some fair amount of money.
Your Future As A Life Coach
If you fit all the criteria above then you have the potential to become a life coach. So what is in store for you when you become a life coach?
Monetarily speaking, life coaching is a good source of income. Being a life coach is a very lucrative business. In fact, a lot of people make a living out of being a life coach. But before taking that leap there some things you should consider:
- Is it worth leaving your current job and become a full time life coach?
- Can life coaching maintain your current way of living?
- Are you willing to take the risk of running your own business?
These are the 3 questions that matter before becoming a life coach. But if life coaching truly is your passion then by all means do not let anybody stop you and soar high.
Bushido Life Coaching
Intelligence
Life coaching is a relatively new method of teaching people and helping them achieve their goals. Some use it for business while some use it for personal gains. Nevertheless, the endless pursuit of human achievement and contentment has proven a very important thing to ponder.
Man has ever been in constant inquiry of what to do in life, finding a reason of existence and using words of wisdom to live by. Sages and wise men have sprung from the center of civilization, imparting declarations of thoughts for other men to inculcate in their way of living.
One of these wise men is Takeda Shingen, a well known samurai of the mid 16th century. He focused on the mere existence of a human being as a thinking being. In one of his famous lines, he said “Intelligence is the flower of discrimination. There are many examples of the flower blooming but not bearing fruit.”
This gives rise to a concept reaching beyond mere intelligence of man just being able to think clearly and do the right responses in adherence to society. The intelligence he speaks of is a proactive intelligence, a type of intelligence in which humans are able to go the extra mile in using his mind. This is the kind of intelligence wherein man is capable of applying his knowledge and having that imparted thought bear fruit.
Man here is tasked to have an objective of being productive. Many people think well and think fast and straight, but many fall short of thinking why he is thinking over something. Had it been that people use their minds and help others think better as well, then it becomes quite different. There is now a co-active coaching done and that both help the helper and the beneficiary in terms of learning from each other.
The Modern Samurai
Whenever someone thinks of a samurai, one can not help but conjure a thought of lightweight armors, sword fighting, and honor system, all of which is in preparation of the upcoming battle. The enemies are always present to bother and pester, but the thought of being prepared for battle and meditating that each day is a day to die makes the samurai a strong person emotionally and spiritually.
Modern times include all the people from all walks of life, living in this contemporary setting where almost everything is automated and makes manual labor almost non-existent. Because of this, the people are pitted to use their minds in order to survive this competitive world where even friends have the tendency to out learn and outmode other friends.
A modern man who thinks that he should only interact and complement the society’s demands definitely needs proper intelligence to communicate. That man may have thought of the right idea, but the real question now lies as to how they would implement it in their lives and to be good sharers as well.
Like a samurai who is a servant to his master. He is guided by his principles to maintain his honor. The modern samurai is a person living amidst technology, serving his own type of master: himself. Without application of his intellect, he will still be able to serve others but will not be able to find any meaning to his existence and why he is doing something for others.
He should first learn how to serve himself to know that the self has been taught. How can someone coach others if he cannot learn to coach himself first? That is the way of the modern samurai – learning to teach the self to be aware what to teach others. That is bushido life coaching.
Choosing A Life Coach School
A lot of people want to become life coaches. Life coaching is both a monetarily fulfilling as well as an emotionally satisfying job. But becoming a coach is not as easy as it seems. You need to have the right attitude and the proper training to become an effective life coach. Most often than not, someone who is interested to be in this line of job need to attend a life coach school. So how do you choose a life coach school?
Life Coach School
There is a myriad of life coach schools all over the world but only a percentage of them can really be considered as schools that provide quality training. There are certain criteria that you should consider when choosing a school to train in.
First thing that you should consider is its training program. Although there is no governed education and training for life coaching, there are certain self-appointed groups that are recognized all over the world. These are the International Coach Federation (ICF), the European Coaching Institute (ECI), and International Association of Coaching (IAC).
These organizations provide different training programs of great quality. The school you should choose is an institution that adheres to the standards provided by any of these organizations.
Another aspect that you should consider is experience. How long has the school been in the life coach training business? A school that has been established for quite some time would have had the experience as well as the expertise to train their students effective life coaching techniques.
Feedback is also another factor that you should consider when choosing a school. Know what are the advantages and disadvantages of the school from the points of view of their trainees. Most often than not, feedbacks are unbiased.
Last but not the least, when choosing a life coach school, you should take into consideration the training fees. Life coach training can range anywhere from $3000 - $6000. Make sure that the fees you may incur for the training can be accommodated in your budget. It would also be good to inquire whether the school provide scholarships or other programs that may help their trainees financially.
The School Can Only Do So Much
No matter how good a life coach school is but if a person does not have the right attitude to become a life coach then everything becomes meaningless. There are a lot of people who wants to become life coaches but some of them are there for the wrong reason – money making. Yes it is true that life coaching is a lucrative job and a lucrative business. And yes there is nothing wrong with money making.
But you should keep in mind that in life coaching, you are holding the future of a person in your hands. If you are doing it just for the sake of money making there is a big chance that you will just do the job half-heartedly.
To become a life coach you need to have the proper attitude. You need to have the passion as well as the heart to help people. Make the money making part your secondary goal. Helping people should be the top priority.
With good training from a life coach school plus the right attitude, then you can be a very effective life coach who could make a positive change in other people.
Coaching for Life
The Social Thinking Being
Human beings are social beings, living out each of their lives in the company and presence of others. There is no known claim that a person can live on his own without degrading himself less of a human being. Each person, being social as he is interacts with the people he comes into contact with.
The normal process of learning would be for each person to impart something, a thought, a practice, a belief, a philosophy, or the mere absence becomes the learning experience for the other to start seeking for answers to be properly integrated into the self.
Throughout the lifetime of a human being, he will be able to share himself and be shared with by others. The influences that subtly change a person into what he is during the present is what he got from coaching for life by those he had been with.
Coaching for life is quite simple to comprehend. It is the way an individual's personality having an effect with those people in his environment. The closer they are physically, and socially will probably have a greater impartment and thus would have a greater change in the attitude and behavior.
Though not necessarily impertinent in the sense that it overshadows another person's fundamental behavior, it deviates and shifts the behavior of a person. It becomes a two way process for the involved people, and a two way process to the individual.
The Paired Two Way Process
Coaching for life could cause either positive or negative results to the other individual. The same goes for that same person by the people around him. Depending on what is more influential; a specific mindset is subjected to a myriad of possible outcomes in terms of belief, attitude, and philosophy in life.
Morality is only a supplemental factor in determining what type of person arises from the many interactions he may get throughout his lifetime.
Like a river run dry, any new rainfall will definitely fill up the dry riverbed, but the water that would fill the riverbed may be murky due to the accumulated dirt when it dried up. Over the course of time, water coming from the mountains, filtered and cleansed will start to replace the murky water that once occupied it.
Our characters are analogous to this dry river bed. We are always an empty vessel in constant need of social interaction and the quality of character building depends on the people who carry the "water" that would fill us. Coaching for life is an essential part of staying human, being able to think, feel, reason out, and take action with the events that come our way.
It Never Ends
Even those who have physically passed away still have their philosophies immortalized by those who have been affected deeply. Coaching for life may extend beyond the grave through the legacies these dead personalities leave behind for others to ponder upon. A classic example would be the teachings of faith by Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, and similar religious entities to their followers.
Several hundreds, perhaps thousands of years have already passed and yet, their words and teachings are still kept as guides for spiritual growth and personal contentment.
Coaching for life for these personalities have been immortalized to such extent because of their great impact to the people who accepted their philosophies and beliefs as their own.
Coaching In Another Level
Spiritual life coaching is one field of life coaching that concentrates on uplifting the spirit of the client. This method is widely common now days. This approach affects the different material aspects of life by dealing first with its immaterial aspect, the spirit.
Spirituality may be a vague term. Its meaning can be subjective, depending on the person who uses the word. It can either be religious or not. But definitely it comes from within a person. Coaching in this field is tapping that inner spirit to become active and in turn change a persons’ life.
Mechanics
This type of coaching focuses on what is essential in your life. Your inspiration to live may have died or you are dried out due to the toxicity and stresses of everyday life. This approach would fill up that yearning inside you once again and the revival of your spirit is achieved.
Its product being tranquility, peace of mind, motivation, fulfillment, and simply the balance in life can be achieved.
Evaluation
At the beginning of the process you will be asked to evaluate your life. Here you get to see the vital areas of your so-called life and rate it on how exactly you are doing along with it. Your coach will guide you through this process of evaluation in order for both of you see what would be the best approach for you.
Discovering Yourself
After you evaluate, you would discover a lot about your life that you didn’t consciously know before. Here you will see the waterloos of your life. You get to discover your highs and lows, those points to work on, your personal assets and characteristics.
You would also get to see your behaviors that you need to get rid off, improve, or keep. Self-awareness is achieved and a sense of individuality is gained. In this process, it is not your coach that discovers you, but it is of your own doing that you discover yourself.
Guiding Points
Your coach won’t be the one to answer your life’s problems. He is just there to guide you through it by pointing out the problems that you have to work on. Thought provoking questions is asked to you to analyze and see the real deal of your difficulty. He layouts the different alternatives or solutions, but then you are still to be the one to decide.
Renovations And Innovations
Lastly, a spiritual coach can help you renovate your life, in the sense that your old spirit that has acquired damages can be repaired. It is really hard to get rid of old habits especially if you had them for years, but with having a life coach this is very much possible.
Innovations can be done too, in which your broken spirit isn’t just repaired but also improved to the best it can be. You can acquire new behaviors that are actually good for you. You get to improve on different fields in life. In effect of having a renewed spirit is the price of having a new life too.
Spiritual coaching is not relying on your coach to pray for you or do mantras or perform spiritual ritual acts on you. It is your spirit that is worked on, thus your own willing participation is needed. Basically, it is making you see the diamond behind the coal of your spirit.
Coaching in Life for Honor
Oriental Value
Whenever I get to watch Japanese-inspired samurai movies, it catches my attention that the main character has a purpose in undertaking what he is supposed to do, even if it means risking and sacrificing his own life. This purpose of finishing a certain task is not only bound to duty but to something more important, something deeper.
I usually am able to discern that the purpose of being is rooted in honor and self respect. My conscience gives me a coaching in life for honor to be sought.
A samurai is not only concerned with his personal objectives but it is intertwined with a sense of self preservation which is more than what can be perceived tangibly, even by other people. Honor for the samurai is his most cherished and well kept treasure. Without it or losing it would mean shame and a loss of dignity.
It is the pride of the samurai to continue to exist in this world of interaction. Honor is the badge of self respect he commands from other people. It is indeed important.
There was also a time which I remembered during one of my previous jobs wherein I was administering a myriad of online gamers who paid for gaming service. Each day that I worked as a game master, I made sure that there were no exploits or cheats done by the players that would compromise the integrity of the game, as well as the other players.
Self Implication
However, it couldn’t be avoided that there would be anomalies and corruption even in such an ideally conceived work. I was not the only game master working. I had colleagues, some of which had different sets of principles. It came to a point that some sort of dishonesty happening between unethical players and immoral game masters. I was knowledgeable of the “under-the-table” transactions of some of the players to have their online gaming characters hyped up.
Even if I could also make easy money from joining the bandwagon, money was not important to me, and so I confronted these colleagues of mine and talked with them about it. It seemed that there would be no compromise that is going to happen so I decided to resign because I couldn’t blindly work in an honorable manner when my colleagues wouldn’t.
It just implies that I value my sense of self respect and honor. I would rather go do an action if it would mean that I would gain the two before mentioned. Of course there are times when I make the wrong decisions, but not because I deliberately compromised and gave up my honor for something shallow such as money or fame or the like. Honor, like that of a samurai is important to me. It is my badge of respect that I can command others to impart with me as I do with others as well.
I shall preserve and maintain this treasure that I have, and that which others may never get or steal from me. It may diminish with mistakes that I do in my life, but as long as my sanity commands to strive for the betterment of this, I shall remain internally self fulfilled.
If there would be something I may do to increase it, I will do as long as I am able to carry out the task properly. Honor will be one of my root principles as I live in this earth. Honor as a coach in life is intangible yet, it is one of the most concrete things speaking of my identity.
Coaching Lives by the Big Guy Up There
The Realization
I remember that day when my girlfriend and I parted ways almost two years ago. For a couple who had been together for almost 6 years, it was very disturbing to think that I would be starting the next day being single. I did not know where to start. I had been accustomed to having her beside me all the time, being with her practically almost every moment I was not engaged in my academics and extra-curricular activities.
I didn’t know who I was anymore. Six months of grief and feeling of loss passed. I had been constantly seeking refuge and solace in my church as I attended midweek and Sunday services, but none seemed soothing and assuring. I had no one to rest my weary shoulders. I needed someone coaching lives and telling me what I should do.
It was only when I had started to practice my Quiet Time (personal talk and devotion with God) did I find the answer. I woke up at 5:30am to devote my personal time to Him alone, and in that moment I opened up the Bible, a message struck me and moved me intensely. The message was always there waiting for me to read it and understand His message. The message was all about me. It said that I am His child, who was created in His image, love and glory.
It knocked much sense into me. Here I was, all too busy to find a very shallow meaning of how I would be able to carry myself being apart from what I was so used to that I forgot Him; that all things that I am was about Him; that what I have and what I should be doing should be for Him. I realized that I am His son, who is a manifestation of His glory and greatness.
I realized that I have to seek Him first and his righteousness. With that, I would be given what my heart desires in His good time. I was able to know now my purpose of existence.
The Inspiration
A new desire for Him instead was born from within. In order to know myself better, I would have to know where I came from and what my purpose was. That would be recognized and renewed each day that I seek God. With it I have a purpose: to be an instrument of getting others closer back to Him and spreading His word of the beauty and wonders of having passion and faith, and His promise of everlasting life and blessings far more abundant than what we, as humans are limited to comprehend.
It didn’t take much time to seek Him. He was there – always was. He was just waiting for me to stop and actually look His way and acknowledge His presence. The rest was history. Sometimes we already have the answers but we fail to look at the places nearest us.
We tend to look for something quick that we forget that when we speed up our pace, it becomes harder for us to focus on things that whiz past us quickly.
By living our lives with Him and his righteousness do we become life’s coaches. We may not know it but as long as we have inspiration of Him in us as our fuel, it wouldn’t be that hard for us to actually go about and not notice that we ourselves are becoming instruments in coaching lives.
Driving Your Life On Its Way To Its Purpose
People live to exist and with existence along comes purpose. It is that one inevitable thing that every one yearns for. It is usually the only thing that is left missing in a lot of people’s lives. That’s why a lot of people now days cease to live their lives, and the main reason is? –They don’t have a purpose to do so.
You may think that finding that sole purpose in life is very much impossible. Then if that’s the case, you better think twice. There are ways to find what you are looking for if you look at the right places. It’s not that easy to find that purpose, but it is possible and having a life purpose coach would be of great help.
Defining Roles
In this kind of coaching program, you are able to sort out your life and seek out your purpose. It won’t be your coach who will find it but of course it would be you, because you are the only one capable of doing that, but you would need your coach to guide you through the process to see a clearer perspective of things.
No Arrows To Lead You
Sometimes you may feel that you are lost. You do daily tasks and activities just out of routine. There’s a big intersection ahead of you and you don’t know which direction to take or pursue.
In situations like these, your coach would be your guiding path. He would let you see the different routes you can take, the pros and cons of each direction and your means of going through that path.
When Everything Gets Stuck
On moments that you feel you are stuck with your life. When all aspects have seem to be successful yet there is no feeling of contentment or fulfillment at all. When you think that there is no more steps to take, your coach will be the one to show you that little extra step you need in finding what you are looking for.
Being Who You Really Are
Purpose is not dictated by the things that you do. Each of us has our own, and this is in our system from the day we are born. Sadly, a lot of factors in our lives are culprits on why it got lost. Factors such as family, peer, social, academic and even media influences us and makes us be unable to find our point of living.
Here, you get to honestly appraise your life and see what factors are over shadowing that purpose in you. In the process you get to know yourself even more. You see in a new light your beliefs, joys, sadness and what matters the most. It can be a scary process but in the end you get that enlightenment like no other.
You will be able to see what matters most. You get to set your real goals and aspirations. In a gradual process led by your coach, you can achieve them in no time.
Your inner dreams and real wanting in life could be revealed and trying to achieve that would lead to that sense of contentment for you. A new lay out of your life will be formed and this would bring you back the joy in living. That excitement that was lost would be found once again and you can start existing the way you are supposed to!
Faith: The Invisible Life Coach
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
There are times when we are at our lowest and become desperately in need of all the right answers. Even how much we try to think straight, we are just so overwhelmed by our troubles that we allow it to just fade us away from our capability of being a thinking being. We succumb to the woes of despair when we have nothing supporting us.
We lose belief in ourselves. We need someone or something to bring us out of the dark, lest we yield to death. When all else fail, we are held by one last effort to preserve our sanity. An entity we can not even see or touch or hear, we call it faith – the invisible life coach.
We are dependent on many things in order to live peacefully and in harmony of ourselves and with others. According to Maslow, a theorist during the 2nd World War stated that there are levels of motivation which drives a man to be productive and positive.
Humans start with the basic Physiological needs like food and shelter, then seeks safety with socialization, then seeks love and belonging from the social group, then proceeds with self esteem security from the outcome of the previous three items, then reaches the pinnacle of harmonious human thinking which is self-actualization, being able to integrate all the areas of needs into the self.
It is true that man has a way to gather these needs and actually make it his basis for self contentment, but one major flaw in this is the possibility of a deficiency in getting all these which results to a breakdown of the whole hierarchy of needs and puts the person back in the shadows of gloom.
Though the first five needs are ever present for the individual to gather and integrate, it needs a binding base and a holding top layer. Whenever the hierarchical needs crumble, the person can still hold on to a thin but durable layer to work his way back up, and when he is able to reconstruct until self-actualization, he is able to hold it in place with the same layer.
This is where faith comes in. A sturdy belief in the unseen and believing that it will keep sanity in place is something more than self-actualization as it goes beyond normal human thinking and tangible comprehension.
The souls alternate type of fuel
We have learned to rise above the ashes time and time again. Others may have failed and allowed themselves to be destroyed totally. Yet until we are breathing, we have the capability to turn things around and hurl ourselves back into wellness.
We are given a mind to think of what to do, a heart to keep us strong against pessimistic events, and a body to perform the necessary actions. The soul is the collective being of our mind, body, and heart. It can still exist with a lack of the other, and is seated in the mind.
This altered existing entity no one sees drives each one of us to simply exist. We do not see, hear, hold, or comprehend it, but we know it is there. We know that each of our souls need its own motivation, and it needs a fuel which is ethereal to suit the ethereal life of our spirits.
Faith, among all others is the belief that we could hang on to when the material world fails us. Faith is the food to our soul to keep our most basic existence in place, may it be with something, a deity, or any other unseen object. It participates in our day to day living just like a life coach, only this time; it is invisible, yet stronger than any other life coach that we may encounter.
Get Back In The Race: Get A Life Coach
Life has a lot of uncertainties; you’ll never know what you’re going to get the next day or the other. You make decisions that slowly complete the masterpiece of your life. However, things don’t always go smoothly as expected.
If you’re feeling lost in the track of your life, or just simply unsure of what to do, getting someone trustworthy that can help you is a wise decision. On the other hand, if you feel like you’ve already got everything that you need yet that one little thing that keeps you from feeling complete, on either case a life coach can help you for personal development.
How Does It Work?
By getting a service like this, you are given a personal coach with whom you are given scheduled meetings either by phone, email or personal meetings, depending on the service available of the service provider or what you prefer. These sessions run through a period of time, where you can bring up your personal problems or those areas in life that you are a little lost with.
Work is done by the coach by focusing on you and targets your needs individually. You get to develop new skills and habits that you would integrate into your everyday life. This change in behavior is for the improvement of your personality and the betterment of your daily struggles. In the end a much improved you is what you’ll see in the mirror.
Areas Of Improvement
In a program like this, you are helped on different areas of improvement. These areas include different aspects of life such as mental, emotional, physical, social, aesthetic, spiritual and professional. With having the right skill, you will be able to cope up with the every day stresses these areas give. You can also concentrate on a certain area if the situation asks of it.
Going Professional
In the buzz of your professional life, an example of how a coach can help you are by making decisions like, starting out a new business, or even taking it to a higher level, and making a career move. Be able to answer yourself honestly if you are truly happy with your job or maybe it’s not fit for you after all.
Social Wellness
By getting into a program, you can improve your socialization skills too. You get to learn how to improve your behavior when around other people and so that they can like you. Or if you have other socialization concerns, your coach would be open to talk about it.
Setting Your Goals
Not only do coaches concentrate on those areas but on goals and dreams as well. He would help you to be able to set your goals and achieve them. You can see your dreams much clearly and turn them into reality.
Getting Physical
Your coach will not be a physical trainer, but instead he will be your motivator. He can refer you to a professional physical program if you need one. He can help you by encouraging you to stick to the regimen for you to achieve that goal you are aiming for.
Moving Forward
In whatever area in life that you are having a problem with, your life coach will be there ready to help you. If you feel stuck at some point, he would make you take the step to forget and move forward. Just remember, that he is not the one that will do the work. It’s still you that can change your life to the best it can be!
How To Become A Certified Life Coach
Being a life coach is one of the most fulfilling jobs in the whole world. A life coach has the ability to make life changes to another person. As opposed to the common notion, life coaching is not for everybody and not just anyone can become an effective life coach. If you have the potential of becoming a life coach then pursue this career path. Also you should know how to become a certified life coach since it will help you gain the confidence of potential clients.
What are the Advantages of Becoming A Certified Life Coach
After your high school graduation what do you get? A high school diploma or certificate. After college graduation what do you get? Another diploma or certificate. When attending seminars, what do participants get at the end? Certificates. So in life coaching, what does it mean to be certified? Does it have any advantages?
In high school or college, diplomas and certificates are proof that you have complied with all the requirements needed to pass high school and move on to the next level which is college. The same goes when a person graduates from college. The diploma and certificates signify that that certain person has completed all the necessary requirements and is ready to move on to the next level.
You may observe that some job applications require you to be either a high school graduate or a college graduate and with your diplomas as proof. The same thing goes with life coaching. More people will flock to you if you have certification.
The advantage of having a certificate is that it stands as a proof that you really are a life coach. In the world today, there are a lot of "not so good people" who take advantage of other people. Anybody can claim that they are life coaches when in fact they are not. A life coach with a certificate will be more comfortable saying that he or she is a life coach since there is proof to back this up.
Getting Certified
So how do you become a certified life coach? Although life coaching has no official governing body that approves standards, there are 3 self-appointed organization though that take on the job. These organizations are the International Coach Federation, European Coaching Institute, and International Association of Coaching.
When you go for your training as a life coach, it would be best to choose a school or institution that provides training programs which are certified by the International Coach Federation. This will ensure you that you will really undergo a training program of great quality which have been proven and tested through time.
There are life coaches though that, even without certificates are really doing their jobs effectively. They have built their name through referrals and good feedback from their client. But even with this kind of status, it would still be best to get certified.
This will not only give you a certified status but through the certification training one will be able to get new information and knowledge regarding life coaching.
How To Look For A Life Coach
The term life coach has become a household name. People have started to accept the importance of life coaches in their lives.
All of us will experience difficulties and hardships at least a few times in our lifetime. And when these events happen, a person can either succumb to the difficulties and bury himself or herself in it or overcome these difficulties and rise above them. A life coach can make that difference.
But with the number of life coaches growing everyday, how do find the right life coach for you? In this article, you will given the basics of how to look for a life coach.
Determine What You Need
Just like choosing a life coach over baseball coaches, football coaches and basketball coaches, you also need to choose what kind of life coach do you want. Life coaches also have specializations meaning there are certain areas that they are really good at.
First thing's first, you need to know what you need. Do you need a life coach that will help you determine your goals and achieve them? Do you need a life coach who will help you with your career path? Do you need a life coach who will help you in your business? There are a lot of different possible aspects and you need to know which one.
Life Coaching Style
Life coaches do things differently from each other. They all have the same goals but they differ in methodologies. You can make the life coaching style a criteria when looking for a life coach. There may be certain methods, styles and techniques that you are not comfortable with so better know them as early as possible. You can also ask a life coach before you start your sessions so the both of you can make the necessary adjustments if there is a need to.
Somebody You Are Comfortable With
There are times that even though it is just the first time you have a met with a person, you already have that uncomfortable feeling towards that person. This could be an indication that you are not compatible with him or her. You can also apply this when looking for a life coach. You can try talking and testing the waters.
If you do not feel comfortable with that life coach, then do not go through with it. An uncomfortable environment is not conducive for development and improvement. Any session you will have will be futile in such an environment.
Certification
Anybody can claim that he or she is a life coach. You need to be careful with this people. When looking for a life coach, it would be good to ask whether he or she has a certification or proof of life coach training. But do not just accept any kind of certification.
There is a self-appointed body that tries to set standards when it comes to training programs. This group is called International Coach Federation. The ICF provides training programs certified to be effective for implementation.
In fairness to other life coaches, there are those who have no certification yet really are great life coaches. They are usually known by word of mouth. If you encounter anyone life coach of this status, you may know more information on the effectiveness of his or her services through the feedback of clients.
Life Coach: Do You Need One?
There is a certain point in time when a person becomes dissatisfied with his or her life. He or she might be thinking that there is something more for him or her out there. It could be about the job, about love, about financial disposition or about life in general. If you feel this way then you may be in need of a life coach.
Life Coach and Life Coaching
A life coach is the same as a baseball coach, a basketball coach or a football coach. The coaches teach and train the players to change faulty habits, develop and improve so that they may become better players. A life coach is similar to them. He or she coaches people to change faulty habits, develop and improve the different aspects of their lives for them to determine and achieve their goals in life.
Life coaching is the process of developing and improving a person's life. It is a partnership between a client and a coach for a certain period of time. The partners will have sessions that will focus on the client's needs and other issues.
Through these sessions, the life coach will help the client develop different strategies and solutions to improve. This is an interaction between two persons and it is not only the life coach who will be making the decisions. The client will be actively involved especially in the decision making process.
Why Do You Need Life Coaching
The point in time when you want change (as have been mentioned in the beginning) can quickly come and go. But this will be recurring from time to time which can become a bother. So what are you going to do about it? Is it okay to let this happen for the rest of your life? Is it okay not to do anything about it?
Is it okay to feel dissatisfied? With a life coach, you will be given a helping hand that will guide you to take that big leap and change for the better. He or she will be there to aid in determining the right path for you to take to improve and feel satisfied with your life.
Benefits of Having A Life Coach
A life coach will help you ponder on what you want, why you want it, and how you can achieve it. He or she will aid you in taking the steps from where you are now to where you want to be. A life coach will give encouragement and provides support, confidence as well as motivation for you to achieve your goals.
Will You Really Benefit From It
Anyone can benefit from life coaching. It does not matter where you are or who you are, for as long as you want changes and improvements in your life, you will benefit from having a life coach.
Life coaches have been effective when it comes to the different aspects of life. This includes financial success, career, health, personal skills & confidence, happiness, satisfaction and fulfillment. It all depends on you on what aspect of your life you need help with.
Conclusion
So do you really need a life coach? The only one who can answer this now is yourself. The basics of life coaching and life coaches have laid down before you and it is up for you to decide whether you need a life coach or not.
Life Coach 101: How to Be A Life Coach
Being a life coach can be one of the most fulfilling jobs in the world. You can help people with their lives and make money at the same time. But being a life coach is not an easy job.
A person aspiring to be a life coach needs to have proper training as well as the heart and determination to help people. For those who want to be a life coach, here are some tips and pieces of advice on how to be a life coach.
Definition of Life Coach and Life Coaching
You may already have some personal ideas of what a life coach is and what he or she does. Some information of this may be true and some may be not. To remove any misconceptions of the job of being a life coach, it would be good to learn what a life coach and what life coaching really is all about.
Life coaching is rooted in the methods of executive coaching which were derived from techniques that were develop in leadership training and management consulting. It also forged its principles from different disciplines like psychology, sociology, mentoring, career development and positive adult development. Because of these though, it has been a misconception that life coaching is a kind of therapy but is actually not.
A life coach is someone who practices life coaching. He or she is someone who helps other people determine and achieve their goals. They use different methods to do this. Methods of life coaches include behavior modification, mentoring, behavior modeling, values assessment, and goal setting. They may also modify existing methods depending on the client to make the coaching more effective. Again, life coaches should not be considered as psychologists or therapists.
The Willingness To Help
One of the most important traits that an aspiring life coach should posses is the willingness to help people. If you are just in because of the financial benefits of life coaching then it would be better to look for another job or business. In life coaching, you should always think of helping first before thinking of the profit.
Communication Skills
Life coaching is communicating. In this job, you will always be interacting with people of different behavior, attitude and backgrounds in life. As a life coach, it is very important that you have good communication skills. You should know how to convey the ideas that you want your clients to hear.
Communication skills is not only about talking and conveying your ideas. It is also important for a life coach to know how to listen. In this line of job, listening is a skill that is critically important for its success.
Undergo Training
The willingness to help and communication skills are definitely crucial to posses but they will not be enough. As have been stated in the definition, life coaches make use of different methods to help their clients. Of course these methods will not just occur to anyone.
As an aspiring life coach, you need to undergo different training programs as well as related seminars. This will provide you with the skills on how to help your future clients. With the help of training, you will be armed with the tools of the trade.
These are the 3 most important things you should consider on how to be a life coach. And not just any life coach but a life coach who can effectively help other people.
Life Coach Objective
The Requirements
There are a lot of academic institutions which offer courses, trainings, and seminars on how to become a life coach. Many of these contemporary schools of thought and practice are situated in UK and adjacent countries like Scotland, Denmark and other European countries. Including the United States of America, the thought of life coaching has easily spread and gained popularity in every corner of the world.
So what does it take to become a life coach? One may actually try and seek for courses offered in the internet and access institutions offering them. Some may even try and think that there are set authorities in determining what a life coach student may have, feel, undergo, and train for in order to become a licensed practitioner.
Fortunately, this social science is not considered to be the basis for self stature in relation to commerce and industry, or any other thing. Life coaching is more than that.
Being a life coach does not require anything obligated to academics. Training to become one is more of guidance from previous successful life coaches like Judge, Cowell, Whitworth, Kimsey-House, and other similar personalities. Requirement to become a possible life coach is just a sane, sound, and an open mind. Starting with the self in preparing to be a sponge eager to be filled with life’s experiences as if it was water, a potential and successful life coach is about to be molded.
The Objective
Sure it is easy to be a mentor, adviser, confidante, consultant, and a friend whose purpose is to help out someone in need of a certain thing. A life coach does all that as well. Now you may ask what differences set life coaches apart from mere consultants or advisers.
Objective. Life coaches have an objective to deal with in seeing to it that the one they are coaching would get to what goals are set prior to the coaching. In contrast to just confidantes who give support, life coaches are there to go along with the success of his pupil.
The life coach becomes more than just a teacher imparting words of wisdom and encouragement to his pupils. He becomes a pupil himself to know how things work with the people he is coaching. It is co-active coaching. The objective of the students become the objective of the coach himself as if he was the actual person needing coaching.
Training with the experts may have brought about all the knowledge and techniques to properly conduct life coaching, but there are still many instances wherein experiences in real life become the solidifying agent of all the dust we refer to as learnings in life. Our objective as a life coach begins with the self.
After we have set our personal objective to be a sponge ready to absorb water, we then start dealing with other people’s objectives and help them reach it through active participation. It may sound silly but as social people, we need to participate in other people’s affairs.
Life Coach Specialization
There are different forms of life coaching available to meet the needs of their clients. As a life coach, you can specialize on a certain field that you think you would do best. Each field is unique from each other, but interconnected too. Sometimes, you have to integrate one field to the other to make your coaching successful.
Relationship Coaching: Dr. Love
This involves helping your client deal with relationship issues in their lives. May it be a past love, present relationship, or even making decisions on choosing a life partner. A lot of people nowadays have love as their biggest problem. Teenagers and adults of all ages have this waterloo in their lives.
This type of coaching does not only include romantic relationships. It may also tackle family, friend, colleague, and neighborhood relations. The client is made to realize that keeping the quality of relations to other people is important for their own personal growth.
Business Coaching: Doing It The Professional Way
Here, you help your client to become successful in their business life. You help them make decisions that are vital to their advancements. Clients in this area probably face problems such as lack of confidence on themselves to run their business or to face the problems they encounter regarding the field.
As a coach, you help them see the clearer framework of the business world. You suggest on strategies for them to evolve into a confident and successful businessmen. You can help them start a business, take it to the next level, advertise effectively, finance wisely and set their priorities.
Management Coaching: Creating A Leader
Here, managers are the most common clients. They are coached on how to be effective and efficient managers. You coach them to hone their leadership skills to the fullest. They usually face problems on decision making, relating to their inferiors, co-workers and superiors. In the end, they are able to cope up with the stresses of having a managerial position.
Spiritual Coaching: Uplifting The Spirit
This field deals with the less materialized problems. It involves uplifting your clients spirit, may it be religiously or not. It can be beneficial not only to the client but also to the coach. The product of a renewed spirit waits in the end.
Life Balance Coaching: Learning To Juggle
Clients who need to know how to balance all those different aspects of their lives whether physical, emotional, social, business, academic and the likes, usually need someone like this. They get to learn their priorities and see clearly what is really important and what truly matters in their lives.
Health And Fitness Coaching: To Live A Long Life
Clients that have health problems, most commonly weight problems enroll in this kind of program.
As a coach, you do not play doctor or a fitness trainer here, but instead you’ll be the one to refer them to one. You are there to motivate them to make changes with positive effect on their lives and keep them going until they reach their goal.
Being a life coach means aiming for the holistic development of your client. So whatever form of life coaching you are in or planning to go into, remember that you shouldn’t forget to look at the whole picture and see whether there are problems in those other areas of your client’s life.
Life Coaches Come in Small Packages
Life Coaches Without Words
Some of the most successful therapies did not come from professionals like psychologists. Some haven’t been acquired through paid services. Some actually have not given any advice. These successful therapeutic life coaches have just been present, and their mere presence are the things that helped people cope up and overcome even the deepest regrets, depressions, repressions, insecurities, and stressors. These are what we often refer to as pets.
When Life Coaches Other Than Humans are Needed
Articles and similar life stories relating to couples who can't have any offspring are faced with a heavy burden of being labeled in society as incapables. Many couples find fulfillment in family status as soon as they start having children…someone calling their own. Unfortunately, physiological limitations and imperfections hamper reproductive functions. Couples in this situation seek something else to provide them the comfort and security of loving someone – or in some cases something.
Many other individuals who have been left by their loved one, been physically hurt, in emotional distraught, or alone in life like some elderly seek the same calming effect by these small life coaches. Even in hospitals where ill patients are down and burdened suddenly come alive with hope and improvement because of these pets' presence.
Pets Like Humans
This is where you would see dogs or cats, or any other pet so well pampered, and taken care like they were humans. One would see them living in their owners' houses, eating the same food, being groomed, given baths, being brought around and placed even in strollers! Many see this as utterly weird and nonsensical, others may even refer to this practice as absurd and radical. However, these small life coaches are keeping the burdened couple together and away from depression of actually having a real baby.
It is when these pets act like humans giving compassion and love and helping troubled people recover and have a better outlook in life do they become life coaches. Like real human life coaches, pets in this manner have the unspoken ability to impart the same comfort and self assurance to those in need of care.
And since they are living side by side with their owners, eating with them, sleeping under the same roof as them, looking after them, and being there to share their presence filled with accompaniment, they are perfect examples of co-active life coaches.
The wonderful thing about these pets is that they don't have to say anything, or advice any words of wisdom and impart philosophical ideas for the troubled individual to think about. These pets are life coaches in a way that they allow the person to reflect and see the beauty and wonder of being loved and having someone stay by their side in times of loneliness or need.
This is the same method that some human life coaches try to implement. By keeping quiet for some point in the healing process, they allow the person to have and conduct some self searching while being offered the presence in case these individuals would need actual assistance.
These pets that are acquired just for the mere idea of being preoccupied and happy is already a small way to distress us before it could get any worse.
They live with us side by side as we mature ourselves. Pets are more than just animals for fun and leisure. They are life coaches that come in small packages.
Life Coaching And Business – A Match Made In Heaven
Although life coaching is a great and lucrative business venture, this is not what the article is all about. This piece will be discussing on the effects of life coaching in businesses. Can it really bring upon changes and improvements to a company?
What is a Life Coach and What is Life Coaching
A life coach is a new breed of professionals aimed at helping people in any aspects of their lives. They are there to aid people change and make improvements in their lives. It can be anything from careers, love, sex, relationship, weight control, business, etc. A life coach will also focus on determining a person's goals as well as achieving them.
As the word "coach" implies, a life coach is their to "coach" and not to direct as opposed to some beliefs. He or she is not there to say, "you do this and you do that," instead, the life coach will create for you foundations or lay down different paths for you.
It is up for you to decide which is the best path for you to take. Everything is all about you and it is also you who makes all the decisions and not the life coach.
A life coach, as some may believe, is actually not a therapist or a consultant. He or she is not there to treat psychologically ill or mentally unstable patients. A life coach is there for the healthy (physical and mental) person who wants to implement changes in his or her life. With the help of life coaching, a person will be able to achieve these changes.
Life coaching is the process practiced by life coaches. It has stemmed from other executive coaching with techniques rooted on leadership training and management consulting. Life coaching is also based on different disciplines which include psychology, sociology, career counseling, mentoring, and positive adult development.
In life coaching there are several techniques that life coaches use to help their clients. Most of the common techniques are behavior modification, values assessment, behavior modeling, goal setting, and mentoring. Techniques and methods also vary from client to client. It is based through the assessment of the life coach whether which method would be best utilized for a client.
Improving Business Through Life Coaching
A life coach can make improvements in a business by coaching the employees that work under it. This is usually the trend of companies nowadays. It has been observed that employees, especially those who have been working under the company for a long time, experience a downfall in performance. This can be caused by different reasons which include low motivation and stagnancy.
With the help of a life coach, these employees, including the bosses, can be revitalized to work more efficiently. And people working efficiently would mean better business.
A life coach will slightly use a different method when handling groups. Most often than not, activities will be based on groups and team work which will be geared towards the kind of business or industry the company is in.
But it is not only during the downfall when life coaches become needed by the company. They are also needed when a new departments are formed, inspiration before presentation of a proposal, or for team building.
It can't be denied that life coaching does have a big impact in the corporate world. Life coaching and business truly is a perfect match.
Life Coaching Through Experience
Everyone is in a Routine
Morning breaks, people start their routine, businessmen begin thinking of the day's itinerary, students begin packing their books, others think of anything under the sun, and even those without anything to actually do stand by and wait whatever happens. One thing is common among all these: they are waiting for something to happen for them to react beyond their routine.
It wouldn’t be a surprise if ever the events in their lives would have a change in their way of thinking, or if the events would just be a normal occurrence for them to shrug off and move on. These events will be experiences, and these events would be life coaching for them.
When Dire Events Become Life Coaching Events
The normal routine for people to go about and do what they have been accustomed to do may not bear any weight in their character building since it becomes automated.
However, given a situation where a bomb explodes, a car collides, or even be in an accident because one has been so busy crossing the street holding a cellular phone and talking instead of concentrating on crossing would definitely be traumatic enough to teach a lesson to the individual.
Unexpected events become life coaching incidents, especially if it teaches people what to do to avoid being involved in an unfortunate accident.
When Rewards Become Life Coaching Events
On the same note, when a person is rewarded by something he did or contributed, and the reward is significant enough for that individual to cherish, there is a tendency that the individual will keep in mind what things are supposed to be done to be rewarded with the same thing. Life coaching in this manner is done by inputting certain actions for rewards and keeping in mind that good things come when certain actions are done in a situation.
When Experiences in General Complete the Life Coaching Process
So throughout the day, a person may encounter both positive and negative events. Some may have so much good events and rewards that it boosts his self-esteem, and it becomes his motivation and drive to do even better. Some unfortunately get more negative events and ill-timed occurrences that it may demoralize the person and lose interest in what he is supposed to do.
Life coaching process in this manner is a double edged sword and is dependent on the person's mindset. A person who is passive may succumb to hopelessness when faced with negative events, while proactive people are challenged to overcome it.
A person's mindset is an incomplete life coaching method since it depends on the previous attitude that he was brought up to be. This is but a small problem since there is an easy solution for this to help the individual cope up with it.
This is where supplemental life coaching from people and professionals are needed. These supplemental life coaches will enhance the positive and proactive mindset of the individual in order for him to look at things positively even if faced with a negative one.
Experiences are good if the person has been molded into a proactive and optimistic person. Nonetheless, being optimistic and having a good life coach perspective needs a constant maintenance of both experiences and supplemental life coaching from other people.
And that is why socialization experience is also an important form of life coaching.
My Enemy is My Friend: the Unwanted Life Coach
The Veridical Paradox
Is there a possibility that something unwanted is in fact needed? Is there a possibility that an enemy is a friend at the same time? Also, is there a possibility that a contradiction is a contradiction in itself in an endless loop? If any of those yield an answer of affirmation, then there is a possibility that a needed life coach may be an unwanted life coach in the first place.
Usually, trends in society nowadays favor an individual seeking for a deep and personal connection of co-participation with another peer referred as a life coach. In this aspect, that individual is in need of something he wants to be inculcated in his lifestyle. The individual sees the necessity of having someone guiding.
Even with the presence of a personal coach for the existence and sanity of a person, a human being’s way of thinking is that he will utilize what is needed, when needed, and wherever the need could be applied with. And that which is not needed is discarded or shunned away.
People, being social creatures have always been bent in preferring to be with people they want to be with. It has been a stereotype that only friends are of value to each other and enemies are of the opposite value to be discarded. But the fact remains that in order to meet and value the meaning of friends, there should have been enemies to compare friends with. Now doesn’t that contradict it? Here are enemies being of help; unknowingly interacting in order for individuals to treasure friendship connections with others. So if that is the case, aren’t enemies the first friends of the affected individual?
Capability and Potential
It is quite hard to defend the statement “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Some might answer that with chicken due to its capability to lay eggs, while others would choose the egg for its potential in becoming a chicken someday, and since the chicken currently in check came from an egg.
Friends and enemies are no different from the chicken nor the egg in this chaotic world. Friends may have been enemies from the past reconciled, and enemies may be the friends that had taken a different path in life against your own.
So how exactly do enemies become a friend? We could put it into perspective that en enemy is already an identified negatively social person. An enemy is already expected to be a cause of unconstructive outcome when interacted.
An enemy has already made us cautious of what to avoid so that we do not experience the same unpleasant things. Unfortunately, no matter how hard we try to think that they are not capable of doing the same thing again, the fact that the person has already experienced doing it may carry it out again
By logic, our enemies have already been teaching us pointers in life to learn from those things we do not wish to experience again, and to overcome such pasts and be much stronger in life. They have indirectly been capable of inflicting a painful encounter and have potentially warned us of what may happen again.
Whether we like it or not, each of our enemies has been an unwanted life coach in our lives. They have been unforeseen friends amidst the disagreeable encounters. My enemy is my friend, and my friend may be my enemy.
Spotting A Qualified Life Coach
The problem with people nowadays is that they do not have a goal in life. This is true not just for the younger generation, but is also true for the older ones. Fortunately, there are now people whose job is to help people determine their goals in life and aid them in achieving those goals.
These people are called life coaches. But with a lot of people calling themselves life coaches, how do you spot a qualified life coach who could truly and effectively help you?
What is a Life Coach?
The first step in spotting a qualified life coach is knowing what a life coach really is. The job description of a life coach is someone who aims to help people determine their goals as well as achieve them. A life coach practices life coaching which uses techniques developed in executive coaching.
A life coach uses several different methods and techniques to aid people. These techniques were developed from leadership training as well as from management consulting.
Common Misconceptions About Life Coaching
People have several misconceptions about life coaching. There are those who think that life coaching is synonymous to therapy or consultation. But life coaching is neither of those things. It is not targeted to treat anyone with mental or psychological illnesses. It is all about coaching (as its name implies). As coaches, they train and guide people about being goal oriented.
But these misconceptions though can credited to the different inspirations of life coaching. The practice of life coaching, as well as its principles, is rooted to different disciplines. These include the disciplines of psychology, sociology, career counseling, positive adult development, and mentoring.
Qualified Life Coach
Now that you have an idea of what a life coach is and what it is not, you already have the basics of spotting what a qualified life coach is. He or she is someone who aims to help people with their goals and he or she is not a therapist nor somebody who treats a person with mental and psychological illnesses. But these are just the basics and will not suffice in determining whether a person is truly a qualified life coach.
Life coaching has no official regulatory standards and no governed training or education thus anybody can call themselves life coaches. The lack of these standards would also mean that no certificate can prove that they truly are qualified life coaches. This also means that no life coach training will give a person any standardized certification. So what do you do?
There are two ways to go about this. First is by word of mouth and the other is training experience. Word of mouth means that a lot of people are saying good things about that certain life coach and they are eager to recommend his or her services to other people. They will also be the persons who can tell you about the effectiveness of that life coach.
Another determinant of a qualified life coach is training experience. This is different from an "unstable life coach certificate." You should remember that life coaching uses methods like values assessment, mentoring, behavior modeling, behavior modification, goal setting and other techniques.
Since these are the tools of his or her trade, a life coach should have training in at least one of these fields.
Last but not the least a qualified life coach is someone who you can easily communicate with. Even if a life coach possesses everything stated above but if you do not "click" with each other, then that certain person is "not" qualified for you. This though is speaking from a subjective point of view.
Starting Your Life Coach Career
You have always wanted to become a life coach ever since you were a fetus. And now, after months or even years of preparation and training, you have become a certified life coach. Now what? It seems like you have hit a wall and do not know what do to next. Well, here are some tips and ideas that may get your engine going.
Target Market
The first thing you could do is to determine who your target market is. Do you want to be a corporate life coach who helps corporate businesses and their employees or do you want to be a life coach for individuals only.
Next is to determine who you want as are your clients. Do you want your clients to be men or women? Age ranging from 25 to 40, 30 to 50, or 200 to 300 years old? These are the decisions that only you can make. It is all about your preference. You could start out by choosing clients who you can work comfortably with. If you are more comfortable working with men, then do so. If you are more comfortable working with women, by all means, do so.
Slowly by slow you expand your targets. You can start life coaching other than those you are comfortable with. You may have started with men but now you can start with women and try to accustom yourself working with them. You try to become more comfortable.
Be Confident
You have worked hard to achieve what you have achieved and you should be proud of it. Show your self confidence in the kind of work you are doing. You should see yourself as a polished professional that is very effective in the line of work you are doing.
By being confident, you are also building self esteem and more belief on yourself. Once you feel this yourself, you emanate this to your surroundings, environment and other people which include your clients.
Market Yourself
A life coach is not a coach when who or she has no one to coach. As a beginning life coach, you need to market and make yourself known to other people. There are several ways to market yourself especially over the internet. You can write articles and you can even make your own blog site. Content should be about life coaching and other information related to it.
You could also write things about yourself and the services you provide. A tip when writing about yourself is knowing what your strengths and weaknesses are. But you do not want other people to know your weaknesses so you write all about your strength. But one thing you should keep in mind though is to never go overboard as to lie about your weakness and turn it into a strength. The key here is to always tell the truth.
Join Activities for Life Coaches
Every once in a while there will be activities like seminars for life coaches. As someone who is just starting out in this career path, joining these activities will be greatly beneficial.
You can meet other life coaches who have been on the job for years and have had accumulated valuable experience. You can ask them for some tips or pieces of advice regarding your current situation.
Taking A Big Step: Coaching A Life
At your first encounter of the term ‘life skill coach’ you may think how absurd it is to be able to coach some other persons’ life. But it is definitely possible to do that. There is more to coaching than the term it self. A lot of people are in the limbos of their lives now and they need someone to put them back on track and that’s what life coaches do.
Being The One
Not just anyone can call them selves a coach and go leading other people. To be one, you have to undergo training of a Life Skill program. Once you are certified to have the knowledge and the experience you become a professional on the field.
There are personal characteristics that are important to be a successful coach. First off, is that you have to be mentally and emotionally stable to help others. You should be able to deal and get along with different kinds of people. You should be accepting to them and is able to express your self clearly to convey to them what you really mean in order to avoid confusion.
It’s not that easy to coach, since you would have to be socially detached to be objective but sufficiently involved to be able to ‘feel with’ your client. You must gain a balance between the two so that whatever comes out from your mouth would not be biased and lead them to some decisions that aren’t well thought of.
Being The Light
Coaching does not mean you tell the person what exactly to do in his life. It is more of guiding him and making him see the different facets of his problem. You help him with all aspects of life whether spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, social, professional and even aesthetic.
You don’t answer their problems but instead you ask them thought provoking questions for them to be enlightened and see the possibilities of their situation. It’s like lighting up the path for them so that they may see the clearer picture that they are in. You help them achieve their goals and dreams, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you do it for them.
You aren’t their attorney, doctor, maid, professor beautician, priest, accountant, fitness trainer and the likes. You don’t do therapy either. You play a much different role from the list. What you do is help your clients make sounding decisions in their lives. Recommending clients to other professionals such as those above is done too in the case that they need to see one.
At The End
Once you have successfully coached, it may not seem obvious to you but you actually have given your client skills that he needs in life. They get to think more effectively and make decisions wisely than before. You also give them a sense of companionship throughout their struggles. This companionship is basically enough to keep them holding on but you give more than that.
They achieve self-awareness and a sense of fulfillment. They acquire a balance of the different aspects in life that used to be like an unsolved jigsaw puzzle for them. All of these are possible because of their participation and the little nudges you give them to bring them back to their personal tracks in life.
There’s nothing comparable to the fulfillment you get in helping out others at the same time its not that easy for you either. Are you ready to coach a life? Now it’s about time for you to make the decision!
The Life Coach Therapy
The Situation
Many people who get stressed seek the professional help of psychiatrists, consult with psychologists, and depend on medication prescribed and handed upon payment by pharmacists. It becomes a trend in very busy people, either emotionally, physically, spiritually, or mentally.
A successful psychiatrist will cost several hundred to thousands of dollars throughout the program, and will actually be stressful enough on the budget. Those who are well off and can afford this type of help are fortunate compared to those who are conscious of their budget. Life coach methods are not utilized in this manner.
The bad side of professional help in this manner is that it is not deep enough to leave a lasting effect that could enable the individual to actually help himself and be independent.
This may temporarily help alleviate the causing stress for the individual and resume work or chores, but sooner or later stress would build up again and soon, he is back into the psychiatrist's office, propped on the sofa, and cashing out hundreds of dollars again.
The Approach
The life coach therapy is more than just guiding the individual to self realization and acceptance. Life coach by profession is more of a guidance counselor, seeing to it that the problems causing the stress to an individual is not only handled properly, but looked upon as a positive sign that these problems are and will always be present, and that the individual's responsibility for better stress management is to include the problems into daily routine.
This life coach therapy is a co-active approach wherein the one helping is also immersed in the situation as if he was actually part of it. This is needed to understand the level of healing a troubled person needs for recovery. Instead of just being a spectator to the events of the individual, a life coach would actually inculcate the way the same stressors trouble the client.
The Cheerleader
A life coach is a cheerleader in a way that he is there to initially place the client in a positive mood in preparation for a more positive outlook throughout the conversation. Proper communication techniques are employed wherein the life coach allows the client to speak out freely of his woes and troubles and concerns.
A life coach in this manner becomes your morale booster in the initial phase of the healing process of the person in trouble. A life coach has the responsibility to initially maintain the little morale that is left in the person in need.
The Big Difference
This may be so much similar with psychiatrists and psychologists but a life coach goes beyond just a client – doctor relationship. It becomes more of a friend – friend relationship, with the life coach following up on the status of the troubled individual, offering philosophical advice rather than diagnosing the problem of the individual.
This manner helps the individual feel less like a robot just waiting for repair parts to be given, and make them feel more of a human being, being cared for and being given concern.
Rather than direct scientific approaches are administered to them by psychiatric and similar methods, a more personal and social approach of life coach techniques are instead identified.
There is a broad range of life coaching techniques, from personal to business type of coaching. Whatever the objective a person in need has, different approaches may be utilized. It is similar to having a best friend guarding and supporting your back whenever you feel down and hopeless.
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