A life coach is someone who aims to help and empower others to make, meet and exceed personal and professional goals - including excelling in the workplace, becoming happy and fulfilled in the home, exploring the self and the world, and achieving ambitions.
Just as sports coaching enables athletes to hone themselves into the fastest, strongest, most tactical competitors in their disciplines, life coaching helps people from all professional and personal backgrounds improve their strengths and build upon their weaknesses to make the most of their lives.
A life coach will never dish out advice because, firstly - giving advice is just a way of imposing a personal view of the world onto another person (who may or may not share the same view) and, secondly - it is not a life coach's job to become personally involved in a client's life. Life coaching is about objectivity, structure and empowerment, not instruction or indoctrination.
At the heart of it all lies the idea that clients must be given the power to help themselves. Offering advice, opinions and judgements would undermine some of the basic principals behind life coaching, which include:
A) Subjectivity: we all have different perspectives of the world - no one perspective is 'right' or 'wrong', but some perspectives are restrictive and can stop a person becoming who they want to be.
B) Empowerment: it is within everyone's capability to adjust the limits of their own perspective. With the help of life coaching, anyone can learn to open their mind if they wish.
C) Guidance: there is a difference between an instructor and a guide. An instructor shows a person exactly what to do, whereas a guide provides the tools and support a person needs to do something for themselves. A life coach is a guide, not an instructor.
You maybe be thinking, why do I need a life coach, I have a best friend. Is your best friend an objective professional who you can trust to advise you on the most important aspects of your professional life and/or business? Sometimes, our friends can’t tell us the truth, as much as they would like to, because they don’t want to risk losing the friendship. A good coach is never afraid to tell you the truth and is willing to be fired at any time. Why not have a best friend and a professionally trained life coach?
Our basic philosophy of life coaching:
If there is a gap between where you are now and where you want to be, then there is room for a bit of life coaching. Why struggle on your own when you can get what you want out of life in a fraction of the time with the structure, support, and tools of a skilled life coach?
