Life Coaching: Top 5 Questions

1. What is life coaching?
*A life coach is someone you hire to help assist you with your personal development, especially in the area of setting and achieving specific goals. Your life coach may share advice, offer guidance, help you make plans, and hold you accountable for taking action. Just like you would hire a trainer for implementing fitness goals, you would hire a life coach to inspire and support you to implement personal life goals. Many people also need motivation with productivity and organization during their coaching process, which is what the coach is for! Every life coaching situation is unique, therefore each individual sets specific milestones and goals to implement during and after the coaching process.

*Amid all your responsibilities, activities and projects, it's sometimes hard to see the big picture and easy to become overwhelmed or feel like you're lacking direction. That's where a life coach can come in. If you are frustrated with an aspect of your life, not sure how to stop making the same choices you keep making or just want to have more happiness, peace of mind and passion -- life coaching can do that for you. Life coaches can specialize in areas like relationships, careers or personal growth. They promise to motivate, offer support when clients need a boost in confidence and help them decide which direction to take (Pawlowski, 2007).

2. How does life coaching differ from counseling or therapy?
*Coaching focuses on goal setting with future emphasis. Coaching meets the client where they are with support during their time of struggle with poignant questions and motivational encouragement. Coaching is about positive acute change.

*Therapy focuses on issues of pathology, healing and unresolved psychological issues of the past. Coaching on the other hand, begins with the present and assists clients in setting very clear, and specific goals that they want to achieve in the future. While the past may be discussed on occasion, it is addressed only in the context of discovering what is blocking the client from moving forward. The focus is always on movement and taking action, not on insight or understanding (Austin & Brain, 2008).

3. How does life coaching work?
*What happens between you and your life coach? Your life coach will be your EQUAL PARTNER. If you do not feel that your life coach is your equal partner, then the life coaching process will almost assuredly not succeed. Your life coach will focus totally on you. You will become the absolute center of their attention. Life coaching is all about you accomplishing your coachable goals on your terms, on your pace, on your agenda (Dueease, 2007).

*Your life coach will ask you personal questions about you for the purpose of having you reveal what is inside you that you cannot see. You will open up to your coach to divulge what make you tick, to unravel the mystery of you. Once you reveal your inner thoughts, feelings and motivations that you had previously not known about or fully understood, your coach will reflect them back to you. Your life coach will become your mirror to describe to you what you divulged to your coach (Dueease, 2007).

4. Does your life need a coach?
*At home: Coaching provides personalized strategies and shortcuts to organize your day and keep you on track. Or you might finally get your closets organized — and keep them that way. A coach doesn’t just solve time-management or organizational problems for you, he or she helps you identify them and teaches you how to develop solutions to prevent them from recurring.

*At Work: A coach can help you navigate the tricky waters of office politics. Even a procrastination problem can be solved with a little support. A coach can teach you to break down a big project into several smaller ones that are less overwhelming and easier to complete. If you need help with long-term goals, coaching can help you objectively review your future employment, promotion or salary goals.

*Personal life: It is different from talking to a friend or family member. Friends mean well and can certainly lend a supportive ear, but completing homework assigned by a life coach can break down mental barriers such as ‘I can’t draw’, ‘I can’t run a mile’ or ‘I don’t know how to sew.’ A coach understands that the idea of running a mile can feel daunting for someone who’s never jogged down the street. She works with you to find creative ways to break down the ‘can’ts’ into a series of small triumphs and ‘cans.’ (Unilever, 2008).

*Often, people need someone to help them take the dreams they have in their heads -- the visions of what they want to do next with their lives -- and do the work to make them a reality. Remember that you get out of the coaching experience what you put into it, so hire a coach when you're ready to make changes, and devote your attention to doing the work. A coach can be a powerful asset, but they will work in a partnership with you, and you determine where you want that partnership to go (Pawlowski, 2007).

5. What do we discuss in a coaching session?
*You will discover: Your passions (the ones you know about, those you suspect but are not sure of and those that have been hidden within you that want to come out) ; Your self-imposed obstacles (what you do not want to do, the opposite of passions) ; Your beliefs and values, some people call this spirituality as opposed to religion, (your boundaries and integrity points) ; Your talents (the ones you know about, those you suspect but are not sure of and those that have been hidden within you that want to come out) ; Your priorities what is most important to you, what is second, third, etc (Dueease, 2007).

*This process of discovery will take several months to accomplish because there is a lot there to unravel. The end result is that you will become the World’s Leading Expert on You! The biggest mystery in the world is not global warming, but is the mystery of ourselves. The reason the life coaching process has become so popular, so valuable, and has grown so much in only sixteen years is because life coaching assists people to discover themselves in such a short time, with so much more accuracy, and in such a supportive and confidential (secret) environment (Dueease, 2007).

References:
Austin & Brain. (2008). Coaching and Counseling: What is the Connection? Found online 7/27/09 at http://www.julietaustin.com/article-coaching-counseling.html
Dueease, B. (2007). How Does Life Coaching Work? The Coach Connection Blog. Found online 7/27/09 at http://findyourcoach.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2007/8/27/3186956.html
Pawlowski, A. (2007). Getting Unstuck: Does Your Life Need a Life Coach? CNN.com. Found online 7/27/009 at http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/worklife/08/01/wlb.life.coaches/
Unilever Group. (2008). Do You Need a Life Coach? Found online 7/27/09 at http://www.executivehealthwealth.com/makinglifebetter.pdf

When it Rains, It Pours!

In Raleigh, NC this week we had quite a monsoon! Aside from lightning and high winds, it was the rain that amazed me: the constant sheer force of a downpour for several days. Sheets of rain, torrents of liquefying repetitions...you get the idea.

Most of us Type A Personalities (driven, hard working, competent) tend to get burnt out quickly and do nothing about it. Most of the time, we work too hard, love too hard, or simply 'be' at higher levels than is expected of us. Our adrenal depletion and cortisol levels start to mimic those strange salmon who swim upstream in mating season. We just keep going, even though we know we're tired.

I embrace my Type A Personality. However, embracing this God-given personality means to take care of the weaknesses too. In those times in my life when it 'pours', re-evaluation is needed, deeper rest, time away from work or stress related triggers, the list goes on. God gives us responsibilities not to weaken us, but to embrace and grow our area of comfort.

Sometimes, when it rains, it pours. Work never trickles in, it pours in torrents all at once. I recently learned that dreams of water or rain can refer to a time of cleansing or sharpening. So true! Those times in our life where everything happens at once can all seem like a blur; in the moment they last forever!

Tips:

• Extend: Find those encouraging support networks (your best friend, your church, your mom/dad), and simply extend your need of prayer.
• Journal! This has been a big help in my life. Journal your dreams, your daily activities, your stressors, anything to help 'unload' your brain. Find a journal that inspires you!
• Relax. Exercise, walk, take many naps, play with the dog, pray, have some 'you' time. This releases endorphins in the brain that help reduce stress.
• Delegate and Organize! If your work load is too overwhelming and you simply can't get out of your whirlwind, try to first organize your thoughts and tasks. Also organizing your surroundings has a HUGE effect on negative stressers. Delegating your responsibility (if possible) to help get the work load off is also a great idea, but not an excuse for avoidance.

Penguine Sex (and Faith)

Last night I was reading Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality (2003) by Donald Miller. Chapter 5 opens with the heading "Penguin Sex (and Faith)." Startled and curious at the same time, I found out that Donald Miller (no relation by the way) was relating our internal voice of faith to penguins during their mating rituals.
Let me explain, although D. Miller does a much better job: penguins swim in large packs until they hit a chunk of ice. They then hop on the ice, and crawl on their belly (which carves little tunnels), until they feel the need to stop. The group of penguins (around 500+) begin something like a disco dance, finding their mate in such a large dance room. The ritual commences, the female lays the egg and hands it off to the male with her flippers. This is the interesting part: the male sits on the egg until it hatches.

Where did momma go, you ask? She's off hunting, grocery shopping, getting her nails done; you know, all the typical female busyness. She could be a hundred miles away. The males are left in the huge huddle collecting warmth with the center penguins circulating outward to keep the heat equal. As almost by maternal instinct, the female returns a month later to sift through the dance floor, find her man, and watch the babies crack the shell.

What's the point of all of this penguin talk? Have you ever felt like you had an internal radar that told you where to go, what to do, and that it all somehow made sense? Like the momma penguin showing up at the exact moment to find her babies being born, faith tends to act like an invisible radar. D. Miller explains, "I have a radar inside me that says to believe in Jesus. Somehow, penguin radar leads them perfectly well. Maybe it isn't so foolish that I follow the radar that is inside of me"(p. 57).

We all have that internal compass; that inner voice that nudges you saying "This sounds fishy," or "This is the better path." Most of us ignore our inner voice, what Christian's call the Holy Spirit, causing us to miss the highlights in our life and stray off course. Sometimes that voice comes in a whisper, you just have to be listening.

• Miller, Donald. (2003). Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality. (p. 57).Thomas Nelson, Inc.

• http://www.donaldmillerwords.com/bluelikejazz.php