What is life coaching designed to achieve?
This is another one of those questions that could be answered 100 different ways. The response is more about process than it is about result. Let’s begin with a brief (very brief) comparison of a therapist job description versus a life coach.
Life coaching is designed to achieve:
- Greater clarity in personal and professional goals
- Create business plans
- Work to improve communication skills
- Achieve financial independence and security
- Achieve work/life balance
- Start a new business or grow your current business or profession
A therapist, on the other hand, focuses their conversation on ways to:
- Recover from past traumas
- Explore why past relationships (business or personal) have been destructive
- Work through depression or anxiety that affect your ability to function at home or work
- Survive a divorce or loss of a loved one (1)
A coach takes the emotionally stable where they want to go. A therapist brings someone back from something from the past. Even this definition is an over simplification.
All of this said, there is a lot of overlap. For example, one of the things I help people develop is a Life Plan. In life planning there is a look at the past, however, this review is for the purpose of finding the memory or the block that prevents people from taking action to change their future. People who develop Life Plans must address the things from their past. The objective is to understand why their current behavior is blocked or there is behavior that is unconsciously affecting current performance.
What Can A life Coach Do For Me?
Life Planning answers the question “What is life coaching designed to achieve?” This is a process of careful examination of current reality and vision development coupled with determined action. The four areas addressed are:
1. Victory: Help clients find Personal Victory over their past
2. Vocation: Identify a client’s Vocation (winning formula, not job) through understanding strengths, weaknesses, infirmities and how to manage them
3. Values: Identify Core Values, Passions and Core Competencies
4. Vision: Develop a plan for their future including Vision, mission and a process to stay on track with achieving their plans
This process can be completed one-on-one or in a group setting; face-to-face or virtual.
A therapist that forwards action is performing the same functions as a life coach. I must also say this is based on my own research and my own experience. Many people have told me their therapist changed their life for the better. The same can be said of a good life coach.
(1) Source
