How To Choose a Life Coach
Posted on July 02, 2011 by Laura Kronen, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
If you are serious about achieving a balanced life, a confident image, and need help to set and achieve goals, you should consider a Life Coach.
You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him discover it within himself. – Galileo Galilei
If you are serious about achieving a balanced life, a confident image, and need help to set and achieve goals, you should consider a Life Coach. SO how do you choose a Life Coach? First we need to understand what a Life Coach does:
WHAT DOES A LIFE COACH DO?
- They help you examine your goals, interests, and choices in order to help you create a plan, create priorities, and achieve the best outcome for you in reaching your goals.
- They act as a sounding board, listening and providing you with honest feedback.
- They work with you to realize any obstacles you encounter and work through them.
- They help you determine your strengths and weaknesses.
- They help keep you focused on what is important to you in achieving your goals.
The best coach for you is the one whose coaching style allows you to connect with her. Life coaching is like a partnership between you and the coach. Therefore, instead of focusing on the experience and qualification of the coach, you are recommended to focus on her coaching style. You should go ahead only if you are convinced and impressed with the style. Always remember that no matter how qualified or experienced a life coach is, if your comfort level does not match, you will not be able to achieve the desired success.
While you are learning how to choose a life coach, it is important for you to understand that there are no specific legal standard for degrees or certification within the field of life coaching. Depending upon an array of factors, the qualification of a life coach varies. Always remember that not all coaches have professional qualifications like degrees in business, psychology, or counseling. Some of them do have, but most of them do not. That is the reason why the style of life coaching also varies a lot. In fact, the qualifications and experience of a life coach should not be an indicator of his/her abilities.
Many people are taking advantage of hiring a life coach to help them set goals and improve different aspects of their lives. Whether it’s career, marriage, time management, fitness or another area that you want to improve, finding the right mentor can help you achieve and even exceed your goals.
The secret for choosing the right life coach are:
1. Be totally clear as what you wanting to get from your coach, is a short term goal, passing an exam or dropping two dress sizes for a ball. Or is it a longer term goal of making the most of your life in every area.
2. Creditability, does the coach walk the talk? Are the coaches actions congruent with what they’re saying. In life many people don’t walk the talk and coaching is no different, so if they talk about punctuality, yet are 5 minutes late for a chat, you might have to wonder if that is the right coach for you.
3. Experience, find out what experience the coach has, do they have the experience to help guide you where you wish to go?
4. Do they help you put together a plan, one shoe size doesn’t fit all. Say that you wanted to be financially well off, for some that’s owning their own home, for others that’s having a home on each continent. This means different plans!
5. Responsibility, who’s taking responsibility for your coaching? It’s your life and the coach needs to help you take responsibility for it. Now that might seem pretty obvious, but many spend their lives blaming the boss, the wife, the economy, taxes or even the weather for the way their life is. Until we take responsibility for our lives, we can’t do much about it.
6. Does your coach treat coaching as a business? Are they professional. As a client you’re paying for results, so you can expect/demand that the coach is professional, and treats you as you would like to be treated by a professional.
7. Last, but by no means least, how will progress be measured? Is there an objective way to measure your evolution? How are you to be rewarded for your improvement?
For more information about Life Coaching, please contact Laura Kronen at laura@beyouonlybetter.com
www.beyouonlybetter.com
