Reasons Why You Need A Life Coach

Each person holds so much power within themselves that needs to be let out. Sometimes they just need a little nudge, a little direction, a little support, a little coaching, and the greatest things can happen.” — Pete Carrol

With so much pressure, obligations and responsibilities on us, life’s indeed hard. That’s why we often feel so overwhelmed and anxious. As the weeks, months and years pass, this pressure builds up and piles on top of us, adding more weight to the shoulders that can’t seem to bear another ounce of it.

Regardless, we carry on and face everything that life throws at us. And suffer. The quality of our personal lives declines, good habits falter, and we retreat into the comforts of the status quo. That’s why a good life coach is so important. We become so ingrained and fixed in our ways that it’s hard to see it from a fresh perspective. It’s difficult to understand the possibilities that exist out when we’re so used to being within our “safe” zone.

Life Coach

As humans, we often try to evade doing what we fear. Ironically, it is these dreaded acts that lead us to realize our goals and our dreams.  A life coach, as a helpful guide, works with you to help you in overcoming these barriers, thereby enabling you to reach your life goals. Most  athletes work with a coach who guides them, works with them to strategize and sees them finally reach their prized goals. Ditto for a good life coach, who tries to unlock your potential and collaborates with you to enable you to achieve your goals. A life coach plays multiple roles in our lives -they unlock our dormant potential, let us find our best selves and perform like a motivator, partner and strategist.

1. Their own life experience in different domains is quite limited, and therefore, they can’t handle the immense range of issues they need to address.  
2. They are emotionally attached to the ones whom they would like to counsel, which proves to be a significant hindrance. Being emotionally attached, they are unable to separate the personal and the professional and are unable to view and analyze their problems in a detached, objective manner and offer unbiased counsel, thereby creating room for biases. Consequently, whatever advice they give is going to be coloured by emotional considerations. 

In view of these limitations, it is best to consult a qualified, experienced life coach only to help you with such problems. 

The way that life coaches work is similar everywhere. They ask you the right kind of questions to enable you to reach breakthroughs to create a paradigm shift in life. But in doing so, they aren’t authoritative at all and therefore, don’t dictate you on what to do. Instead, they work as motivators and partners in your success and make a plan with your active and complete involvement and nudge you to work towards these goals.

So, a life coach isn’t just a mentor or a coach in the most basic sense. Rather, a life coach is someone who’s there for you through life’s difficult and challenging times to guide you and help you see things differently, refine your approach so that you can achieve your loftiest dreams.

How life coaches work

Whether you are trying to rise the professional ladder or are raring to become an entrepreneur, the truth is: We all are in need of a little support, self-reflection and continual personal development. However, even in the best possible scenarios, we have some blind spots that prevent us from seeing the bigger picture. Our thoughts, habits and behaviors hinder our growth. Ditto for friends and family. While our loved ones may have the best intentions, they often cannot properly analyze to give actionable advice. Enter the life coach, who works with you to enrich your life in many ways:

1. Identifying, prioritizing goals

Often, for many among us, the central issue is not a lack of ambition but of clarity. Going through everyday life, we are caught in rat race, chasing a vision of success handed down to us, instead of a vision one created intentionally by us. Thus, it’s not a surprise that so many of us spend their lives doing all “the right things,” i.e. going to college, working in a job and marrying, only to realize later one fine day that they are unhappy.

But by working with a life coach, you can connect to yourself more fully, letting yourself create the kind of life you want, based on your own standards. That may imply being an entrepreneur, having a side business or embarking on a passion in your time. A life coach helps you connect to yourself so that you may identify and prioritize these new goals.

2. Transitioning to a new identity

Life coaches can be of great help during times of great transitions e.g. career change, divorce etc. A life coach can help you remain grounded in the midst of such huge changes. One of the biggest reasons why changes are so difficult is that they challenge the stories we have held close to our hearts for so long. Questions like Who am I without sans marriage or relationship? can be scary to face alone, but a life coach can reframe this narrative so as to ready you up for an empowering experience. 

3. Support and partnership

A life coach supports and comforts you by challenging you with care to set your goals with conviction and accountability. The life coaching relationship is open partnership between a client and the coach, where authenticity, connection and intimacy are key to success for which both partners must pull their weight together.

A coach doesn’t serve as a yes man or healer; they reflect back to the client their potential to express inner brilliance. With regular interaction, the two create often an ongoing relationship that the client can rely on for support.

Still sceptical? Worry not, read on to find out more!

Benefits of Life Coaching

1. Clarity in life

Among the major benefits of life coaching, this one deserves the top spot. As a practicing life coach, I have found it to be among the topmost reasons behind the clients approaching me. If you think that we all know what we want from this life, you may be mistaken. A great many number of people have too many opportunities right before but they often take decisions that do not let them move towards goals. A life coach helps you decide on your priorities and inspires you to contemplate about life so that you may decide on the most important things you should bring about. Gaining an absolute clarity can enable you to execute the tasks fast as focus is the key to achieving your goals in life. 

2. Peace of Mind

Our life is full of many bitter experiences and negative events and when we can’t share them, frustration, anger and tension start festering. A supportive family and friends can help no doubt, but you may feel uncomfortable while sharing certain feelings with them. That’s when a coach enters the scene to work with you to create a new focus and positive strategy to get you to your goals.

A life coach is forever willing to listen to and understand you. Besides, they are never judgmental; rather, they always encourage you to confide in them so that you can share and bare all to help them work through your blocks to let you reach your goals.

3. Maximizing your accomplishments

Accomplishing our goals gives us fulfillment and further motivation to improve our performance. But, many people, who are unable to accomplish their goals, often experience a void, which demotivates them from trying any further. Life coaches are keen to know about your inner  passions and work with you towards making them a reality.  They push you much further to celebrate small personal successes, which can help you achieve bigger goals.

4. Time saved

Being a life coach, I often get to meet clients who constantly complain of running short of time. I can empathize with them but I need to work with them to make them realize the unrealistic nature of their perceptions as everyone is blessed with 24 hours a day. All that they need to do is think of their time in a very different manner and practice some proven time management techniques to make the most of their time and strike a balance between work and life, between the personal and the professional,  

Time is ALL that you have; you can’t borrow it, buy it or loan it!  In retrospect, most people often wish they had more time but the truth remains: nobody can get more time than anybody else. People tend to think that they can achieve things on their own and the fact is, they really can. But how fast do you want to achieve it? While doing it alone, you can burden yourself with additional responsibilities and things tend to go out of control sometimes, making you lose your focus.

As a navigator, a life coach can assess your present situation and work with you to help you get the desired outcomes. The coach works as an accountability partner in your efforts and you can see a collective effort tailored towards your goals.

5. Money Matters

Working on the basis of misguided financial decisions may land you in a big problem at a personal and professional level. Many people often do not analyze their financial situation and tend to make unprofitable investments. These repeated financial failures can lead to aimlessness and apprehension about their next move.

A life coach knows well that life is a glorious result of good, meticulous planning. Life coaches give you an action plan, having a step-wise approach to follow and align your financial goals with your life goals. It can work to enhance your affordability level and prosperity in life.

6. Chasing dreams

We dream all the time and this aspiration of a better future lets us live our life more fully and goads us to take hardships in pursuit of our goals. But, quite often, the dreams are ambitious, which makes us doubt their achievability. Getting validation and encouragement for dreams is a most enriching benefit of working with a life coach. A life coach can separate professional and personal lives and understand your aspirations from an objective viewpoint. It can place you on the right path so that you move ahead confidently to make the first big move.

7. Getting over obstacles

The blockades in our paths limit progress and we often become detached from our goals altogether. In the process, action – the only way to overcome obstacles – goes to the backseat. A life coach lubricates these positive changes and encourages you to become courageous in confronting life’s challenges. A life coach helps you identify these hurdles and when you acknowledge them, you develop a different attitude towards them. Now, you can focus energy and time on an effective plan of action to move on in life.

8. Different attitude

Throughout life, we experience joys, sorrows, hardships, challenges and accomplishments. Cultivating a different approach to these things helps us see them with wisdom in a new light. We can harvest the true benefits of a life coach by developing an attitude of looking at hardships as challenges. This change in our viewpoint brings about significant consequences for us.

Challenges change us and lead to personal growth. Consequently, we begin loving challenges as a path to gaining greater freedom, wealth, happiness. It keeps us focused and when combined with action, we are set to have amazing results.

9. Bye-bye to anxiety

We tend to get overwhelmed by stress and anxiety – major obstacles on our life journey. They can create poor self-esteem, the lack of confidence and nervousness etc. A life coach can help you accept the fact that you need to live your life rather than waste your energy on stress and anxiety. Life coaches know jolly well about the inevitability of stress in life and work with you to find ways to control stress so that you can feel revitalized.

10. Navigating tough times

While handling challenges, we often look for others’ support as it makes us feel better about us. Handling problems on your own single-handedly for long can increase the chances of mistakes. Life coaches make you realize that handling life challenges is  important for you to get wisdom.

A life coach goes deeper to discover the problem areas and with constant support, helps you get rid of these problems. Quite frequently, you may not be searching for a solution; rather, you may just want to know if you are moving on the right path. A life coach can identify your limitations to let you enjoy peace of mind and gain the strength and confidence to look forward.

11. New Ideas

Nothing is as powerful as the idea whose time has come!   –  Victor Hugo

Among the many benefits of life coaching, this one holds a unique importance of its own.  Whatever great achievements man has made, regardless of the domain they belong to, were once just ideas in one’s mind. An idea is the building block of all inventions, development and careers and can transform the world in unrecognizable ways. A life coach can help you achieve transformation in life by offering you the right questions to discover your key ideas.

A life coach can help you find those ideas, which are in line with your needs and unique traits. Life coaching can nurture innovation and creativity and also generate good ideas, which can open the gates to many opportunities.

12. A Balanced life

Many domains of our lives e.g. career, family, social circle and health warrant constant attention on our part. We have to assume and play many roles and start facing problems when a particular area consumes most of our energy. As the result of this problem, we begin to look for balance in life so that we can give equal focus to our roles.

A life coach understands very well that an imbalance among the key areas may create complications. Therefore, they guide you about acknowledging priority areas like career, finances, health, entertainment and ensure that you have a  balance so that you achieve positivity and satisfaction.

13. Accountability

The singular benefit of a life coach is that they inspire you to believe in getting the right results with the right techniques. Our behavioural patterns can prevent us from living life fully but a life coach can give you opportunities for self-discovery and make you realize that the only way to progress is to act. This way, you can quit the habit of procrastination and become accountable for your own actions. Such personal growth can be made much easier with a life coach.

14. Purpose of Life

Finding the purpose of one’s life is perhaps the most significant among the benefits of life coaching.  Very often, we are easily distracted in the absence of a clear idea of what we want from our lives. Life coaches always ask you the most significant questions – “What’s the purpose behind your life? What is the most significant to you and why?” And your answers to all these questions have a potential for changing the course of your life.

Life coaches often meet such people who may be unaware of the direction of their life owing  to the lack of purpose. A meaningful purpose in our life drives us to move on, accomplish tasks, learn from failures and achieve satisfaction from getting success.

A life coach can certainly bring about a change in our behaviour to bring positivity and inspiration in our lives so that we seek more from it. They can motivate people to have self-belief and live a life of well-being and happiness. We often tend to forget that every person is a significant part of the universe and, if they contribute positively, our world would be a better place to live in. A life coach can enable you to see your true self and make you realize the purpose of your life.

15. Confidence boost

We would like to excel in our occupations and professions but frequently, we do not have the required confidence and energy to step up and make a change. Many among us have our own limiting self-beliefs, which limit our opportunities for exploration and we tend to follow the examples of others. In this manner, we tend to ignore the unique beauty and opportunities of our own personal life journeys.

Life coaches remind us of our own uniqueness and emphasize on the fact that our aim is to set examples through our own successes and trials. They encourage us to become self-sufficient so that we may follow our own path rather than others’ opinions let guide us. Thanks to this self-reliance, we can approach life with confidence and succeed on our own terms and conditions.

16. Revitalized

Have you ever seen a child closely, how freely and energetically they approach everything? But over time, we adults tend to lose this adventurous streak in life. Life coaches can introduce a big attitudinal change as their probing questions act as stimuli, which creates excitement to make us feel as renewed.

Life coaches are expert at asking the right and meaningful questions, which goad us to cultivate a different outlook towards our life and awaken our creative impulses, which may be lying dormant inside us. As a consequence, you begin to feel as though your life were an adventure again.