In a nutshell, what is the purpose of Life Coaching?

Life Coaching is focused on inducing transformation in you. It’s a process of self love and empowerment to help you realise your potential and positivity. A Life Coach generally looks forward, not backwards, to develop good outcome driven habits and navigate obstacles.

How is a Life Coach different to a Therapist or Counselor?

Therapists and Counselors will often require a Master’s degree or even a PhD in their chosen discipline. They’re regulated by a national body and have a rigorous set of standards to protect their clients.

Certified Life Coaches do not require the same degree of education as they’re not responsible for their client’s progress - the client is. Therapists and Counselors will look to diagnose, treat and cure dysfunction and problems whereas a Life Coach guides through a set of strategies and models to achieve self discovery and improvement.

Do I need a Life Coach with experience in the field I want to succeed in?

No. Sometimes, if a person has reached a high level of success in a specific field, they make very poor coaches as they become too narrow minded and single focused on how it should be done.

Think about gymnastics or swimming or cycling at the Olympics; it is now very rare for a coach to have stood on the same podiums or worn the same medals as the athlete has. Life Coaches teach a set of strategies, navigational techniques and mindset shifts to achieve the marginal gains the client needs.

Will I ever need a Consultant or Mentor to help my journey?

You may but that can be discussed with your Life Coach. A Consultant will be a subject matter expert providing a very specific service to complete for you, on your behalf. Think about a person building a website, an accountant, a sports therapist; they do the work for you so you don’t have to.

A Mentor is a subject specialist who has already achieved a level of success that you want to achieve and is there to be a subject specific sounding board. A Mentor gives you subject specific advice whereas a Life Coach helps you organise your life to receive it and act upon it. Sometimes it will be necessary to outsource certain tasks to expedite the process but, the Life Coach/ Client relationship remains the foundation.

If a person is already successful, why might they need Life Coaching?

Success does not mean ‘content’, ‘fulfilled’, ‘self actualisation’ or ‘happy’. Many people attain high levels of material or financial success but remain unfulfilled, bored and miserable. This is very common, particularly if a person has done the same type of job their whole life; they want a change. Either to do something different or be something different.

There are no rules to say that we must pursue the same trajectory our whole lives just because we have. Life Coaching is about supporting that transition or complete reset or restart.