Written by Garland Smith. Disclosure: AI used for research, analysis, organization, fact-finding, and formatting.
I am a certified life coach through the International Coaching Federation.
There’s a lot of information available that describes life coaching. Some of it is accurate. But a lot is inaccurate or misleading.
What is coaching?
Coaching is a partnership between a client and a coach. The coach assists the client in identifying specific goals, developing a roadmap to reach them, and devising a plan to reach them. Coaching is a thought-provoking, creative process that inspires clients to maximize their potential. My job as a coach is to help my clients define and focus on their goals and help them develop a roadmap for achieving them. As a coach, I lead my clients through inquiry and personal discovery to build their awareness and responsibility. I provide my clients with structure, support, and feedback and hold them accountable to stay on track toward reaching their goals.
What a coach does:
Your coach helps you focus on positive things that will help you get where you want to be. Your coach doesn’t need to be a veteran or expert in any specific field. They must have a well-developed sense of compassion and empathy, the ability to ask probing questions and listen, and a heartfelt desire to help you fulfill your potential.
Your coach provides stable support and encouragement amid questions and concerns:
Your coach helps you discover and use your God-given abilities, talents, and gifts to get where you want to be.
Your coach helps you build self-esteem:
If you are not fulfilled in your job, you may have lots of self-doubts.
You may need encouragement and someone to help you discover and understand that you have attributes that are to be valued. You may be sticking with your current job because you lack self-confidence: Who else would want me? Perhaps you are staying in an unsatisfying, unfulfilling job because the uncertainty of finding something causes you to maintain the status quo. Sometimes, a lack of self-esteem makes the thought of finding fulfillment daunting.
Your coach helps you find where you can grow:
Life choices are made using knowledge of one’s background, makeup, and preferences. You may be unaware of or discount your strengths and what you are capable of. You may not be sure about what you want. Your coach helps you find the answers to these questions. This is important to see possibilities for which you have an interest or affinity and for which your background and personality are well suited.
Your coach acts as a sounding board to listen to you and support you in finding your own best advice:
Your coach listens, discusses, evaluates, and provides unconditional support, assisting you in finding your own best advice.
Your coach helps you develop and prioritize an action plan:
An action plan consists of a set of steps that need to be accomplished to achieve a goal. Because it’s impossible to do everything necessary all at once, the actions must be prioritized to execute them in a logical order. Some activities can be completed in parallel; some steps must be done serially.
What a coach does not do:
Your coach does NOT provide advice, consulting, or psychotherapy.
Your coach does not provide advice:
The coach’s role is co-creative and involves listening and discussing. You are ultimately responsible for coming up with your action plan. The coach supports you in finding your own best advice.
Your coach is not a consultant:
Consultants provide advice to help you solve problems. Your coach will guide you to your solution. Consultants focus on results. Your coach focuses on you. Consultants are hired to produce specific effects. You work with a coach to support you as you work to achieve a particular outcome.
Your coach is not a counselor or psychotherapist:
Psychologists, psychological counselors, and psychotherapists are mental health professionals who deal with issues of the mind. Therapists are experts in medical and behavioral sciences trained in diagnosis. Your coach sees you as a person with strengths and areas that need further development. Your coach uses their insights and intuition to help you find fulfillment. Therapists often focus on the past. Your coach will focus on where you are now, work with you to determine where you want to be, and help you find a strategy.
Why did I decide to become a Life Coach?
My empathic nature, combined with an innate desire to help people, has drawn me to coaching. As a coach, my focus is to help my clients develop a plan to reach their goals, dreams, and desires, whatever they might be. The coaching process clears the mental clutter and enables you to make changes that will allow you to approach life with a fresh perspective, a revitalized sense of direction, and renewed enthusiasm. As your coach, I will help you move from where you are today to where you want to be.
What happens during a coaching session?
For individual coaching, we talk for 45 to 60 minutes. You bring a situation, problem, or opportunity. I ask you a series of probing questions to establish perspective and encourage reflection and shifts in thinking. I listen carefully and help you to identify and remove obstacles. This interaction helps to bring clarity to the situation. The necessary actions or behaviors often become evident. During each session, we establish one or more actions (referred to as focus goals) that you agree to complete before our next session. Each subsequent session begins with a review of the previous week’s successes and challenges and how well you did with your focus goals, celebrating, encouraging, and supporting you.
How is coaching different from therapy or counseling?
In a nutshell, coaches work with people looking to make changes or accomplish goals, focusing on the present (where you are now), the future (where you want to be), and how to get there. Counselors and therapists, on the other hand, work with people who have painful, unresolved issues, focusing on past behaviors and their underlying causes. Counselors and therapists work with clients who require professional help to work toward resolution. Coaches work with clients who want a detached partner who helps them define their goals and provides support and encouragement in achieving them. Therapists and counselors are experts in medical and behavioral sciences trained in diagnosis. Coaches recognize that every client comes into coaching whole and complete, able to generate their own perfect answers from their innate, God-given wisdom. Coaching is a partnership where the client is the expert on their life, and the coach’s role is co-creative.
Undoubtedly, some individuals would be better served by working with a therapist. If it becomes apparent that there are essential, unfinished issues from your past that are providing an obstacle to coaching, I will suggest that you seek therapy.
How long will coaching take?
Coaching is an ongoing, co-creative process where the coach and client work together to effect positive change for the client. Several factors determine how long the process will take. What do you want to accomplish? Where are you now vs. where you want to be? How you (the client) work toward your goals? A single coaching session isn’t likely to do much good. Change is hard. It takes time to crystalize goals and formulate an action plan to effect change. Achieving change requires ongoing focus, motivation, action, and encouragement. I recommend a three-month commitment to coaching and then re-assess. I’m not talking about a three-month obligation. I’m talking about time to give coaching a chance. Three months is plenty of time to experience the coaching process, achieve some successes, and assess whether you’re benefitting from coaching. As your coach, I have your best interests at heart. I will let you know if I feel that coaching is not working for you.
Who benefits from coaching?
Coaching may not be for self-sufficient people who prefer to solve their own problems. It’s not for people who are perfectly satisfied with the status quo and see no need for change. And coaching is not for people who want to have a pity party or want sympathy but don’t see any reason to change anything.
Coaching is beneficial for people who are open to partnering with a coach and are willing to be coached. It’s for folks ready to take action and consider doing things differently from what they have done in the past. Coaching is for people willing to commit time, energy, and resources to make changes that make a difference in their lives.
What’s involved in finding the right coach?
Finding the right coach is an exercise in finding someone with a genuine, heartfelt desire to help you reach your goals, dreams, and desires. The best coach is one with whom you have a good rapport (a good coach will be working on establishing rapport from your very first conversation and work to establish a connection) and who understands that coaching is not about giving advice but instead listening to you, the client, to determine what you’re looking for and helps you to achieve it. Before making your decision to pay for coaching, request a complimentary session. Many coaches offer a complimentary session as a matter of course. This is a great way to assess whether the coach is a good fit. It’s a good sign if your coach offers a money-back guarantee after the first month. This shows they are confident in what they have to offer and stand behind their coaching.
There are lots of coaches out there. Why should I work with you?
I am a certified life coach with a lifetime of experience listening to others and offering assistance when possible. I am invigorated by the potential within each of us and revel in my part as a coach to help my client reach and achieve that potential.
How much does coaching cost?
The fees charged by life coaches can vary significantly depending on various factors such as their experience, qualifications, geographical location, niche specialization, and the level of services they provide. Hourly rates range from $50.00 to $500.00. Some coaches offer coaching packages or charge monthly retainers. Group coaching rates are less than individual because the cost is spread across group members.
If you think you might benefit from goal setting and achievement, personal development, career transition or advancement, work-life balance, relationship improvement, or personal empowerment and fulfillment, consider working with a life coach.
About this sample: A long-form explainer for prospective coaching clients, describing what coaching involves, how it differs from counseling and therapy, and how the process works. Written by a certified life coach. Disclosure: AI used for research, analysis, organization, fact-finding, and formatting.
Writing sample by Garland Smith. ← Back to Freelance Writer