Let us start with the understanding an example of movie ‘Dear Zindagi’ where an actress was passing through a mental trauma due to her past experiences and was not able to move forward. She started considering herself as a big failure and where there is an entry of the therapist happens in her life.
The therapist helped her to understand her real internal issues or battles she was fighting alone. He helped her to understand herself in better way. He made her to meet better version of herself. Everyone must watch this movie at least onetime.
Are you satisfied with what you have in life? Have you achieved everything that you used to dream about? Do you understand your desires and needs of your own more than anyone?
If your answers are NO all the way, then it’s about time you do something about it.
It’s time for you to hire a life coach who will act as your mentor without judging you. But what exactly does a life coach do and how can you get benefits from them?
In this article, we will dive deeper into the world of life coaching. You will know about the role of a life coach, the benefits of life coaching, and how to find the best life coach for yourself.
Keep reading to find out!
What is life coaching and why is it important?
If we ask a blue -fly to fly its highest capacity, it will still fly around your space in its maximum limit. But what happen if we put the same fly on the back of the thoroughbred horse which is healthy and can run faster? It can travel long distance of miles without even getting tired.
Our mindset, vision, spirit, heart are just like a flying capacity of a blue fly, very limited, restricted and rigid. If we get influence of the correct life coach in the life who has a wisdom and capacity of thoroughbred horse, then we can increase our capacity to run miles which we have never had thought of.
Are you feeling stuck in a life where you feel like your life is going nowhere? If so, then life coaching might be the best solution for you.
What you know as life coaching is actually a long process of developing your way through obstacles and achieving your personal and professional goals.
Checkout: 15 Personal Life Goal Examples and Ways to Achieve Them
Life coaching is basically an interaction or rather a collaboration between you as a client and the life coach working as a mentor.
If you choose to hire a life coach, they will work with you to identify strengths, weaknesses, and goals, and provide you with a concrete plan to change your life.
Life coaches are specially trained to ask you questions that will reveal things even you didn’t know about. They listen to you actively, and patiently without questioning your actions. They also try to get an idea about your aspirations, how you value yourself, and what your priorities are.
A life coach doesn’t dwell on your past, they keep it in your present and future. Life coaching brings within you a mindset for success. It doesn’t heal you from your past, rather it focuses on what your future will look like.
Life coaches exactly understand where the issue one is facing in his or her life. I can say that through my experience of different clients. Like one client came up with some child issue but when I had a consulting session with us we concluded that the real and major issue was different. If those issues are taken care of then the child issue will be taken care of automatically.
When we go to the doctors, they consider our situation as depression or stress and we have a negative opinion for this like I am not having any stress or depression but the fact is that the depression and stress are actually existing in our subconscious mind without our awareness.
Our subconscious mind constantly keeps thinking and worrying about our past and future which we do not realize but start facing consequences like insomnia or disturbed sleep, not being able to focus on work , having headaches. And there is where the life coach enters our life. They are able to diagnose the condition of our subconscious mind and help us to let go of our fears and boost our confidence.
What are the differences between life coaches and psychotherapists?
Now, some people mistake life coaching for therapy sessions. However, life coaches are not certified therapists at all. You can see them more like advisors who tell you how to do something meaningful with the life you have.
Let’s discover more about what a life coach exactly does and how they are different from therapists.
You have seen this too way too many times in the movies where a character has a traumatic past and goes to therapy sessions. Then the therapist has multiple sessions with the client helping them to overcome past issues.
However, things are somewhat different when it comes to life coaching. Since life coaches are not therapists, they can’t actually help you to overcome mental problems. Treating mental health issues is outside of the expertise of a life coach.
A therapist, on the other hand, can’t help you with your financial growth and personal development. So no matter how similar life coaching seems to mental therapy, the two are not the same. But yes, they both involve interactive sessions and you as a client need to be honest and active throughout.
Overall, a life coach has certain traits such as —
- Not a certified professional
- Works as a guide or mentor
- Alters your current mindset with a new one
- Helps you grow financially
- Assists you at managing stress factor
A psychotherapist has some distinctive features such as —
- A certified professional who has a license to treat
- Works only on your mental wellness
- Helps you grow mentally
- Might prescribe you medication
- Has the ability to diagnose your problem
What is the aim of life coaching?
To be honest, life coaching is not the same for everyone. What has worked for you best for your friend, might not have the same result for you. Do you know the difference?
That’s because each individual has different personalities and needs. Your personal or professional goals might not be the same as the person next to you.
This is where life coaching plays a crucial role. It puts every individual under scrutiny and figures out what is going wrong with your life. So, the main purpose of life coaching is to treat every person individually.
Basically, it provides you with personal and professional goals that will be life changing experiences for you.
Life coaching offers multiple benefits to make your life a lot more meaningful. For starters, it helps you to understand and clarify your personal and professional goals.
Plenty of people out there who have no idea about what they want most from life, let alone take the time to define it. A meaningless life is as clueless as a ship without sails. But once you have clarity on what you want, you will be able to take control of your life.
In order to work towards your goals, you must take more purposeful actions. You need to stay committed and make better decisions as well.
Another important purpose of life coaching is to provide you with a brand-new perspective. Sometimes all you need in life is an outside intervention that will help you to see things from a different angle. A life coach makes you eliminate negativity and empowers you with enough positive vibes that you become a go-getter.
Moreover, the influence of a life coach helps you to develop new skills. The idea of wanting to learn more is what makes you different from the crowd.
Why coaching is important for success
Now, you might still have doubts about life coaching. You might still be wondering how coaching can help you to get success. Here’s why.
To develop a success mindset
Most people fail to realise that in order to get the success you need to have a success mindset.
But what exactly is a success mindset and how does it work?
A mindset for success is nothing but your way of positive thoughts that focuses on opportunities, realistic possibilities, and personal growth. It often brings a positive attitude in you so that you can learn from your past mistakes. If you possess a winning mindset, then nothing is going to stop you from getting what you want.
However, you may question how you can achieve this success mindset.
Well, the answer is simple. There are quite a few ways of developing a mindset for success. One of them is to visualize success.
Success doesn’t look exactly the same for everyone. What you think is success might be the opposite of another. This is why you need to understand what real success means to you.
You might as well dream about becoming a millionaire or just want to sleep at night peacefully. So, you need to picture success as you want it to be.
After you know what kind of success you’re going after, you have to stay positive throughout. There’s no room for negative vibes especially when you’re following a special route.
Additionally, you have to practice gratitude to be successful. It is the practice of focusing and embracing what you already have, rather than to cry for what you don’t have.
It’s perfectly normal to have high ambitions, but that doesn’t mean you must whine about what you lack in life. The main key to success is being happy with yourself. The rest will come eventually.
To set realistic goals
Let’s just say that you have decided exactly what you want to achieve in life. But next, you have to curate a proper plan to reach the goal.
Building a proper plan calls for setting goals. Most people somehow mess up this particular part where you need to set goals to achieve greatness. Managing stress would be much easier when you have small goals to achieve.
The thing is you cannot build a skyscraper overnight, you need to start with building a solid base. That’s because if you don’t, the whole building will crumble to the ground before you know it. So what you need is to take baby steps towards success.
Life coaching teaches you how to set realistic goals. Some people don’t understand the importance of targeting small things, and instead, they set such goals that are almost impossible to achieve.
As a result, it’s quite obvious that people give up after they fail to meet their unrealistic expectations. However, life coaching helps you to set goals that are possible to achieve. This way, anyone will be able to meet some sort of expectation.
To guide you toward change
When you are desperate to get success, and yet find it hard to grasp it, you need to make changes in life. You can’t go on like you are doing now, as this would do no good to your near future. That’s when you need some coaching where you will learn how to alter your lifestyle.
The job of a life coach is to understand you like the way nobody does. The best life coach will listen to whatever it is you have to say, be patient with you, and figure out exactly what areas you need some altering.
Then, as a mentor, your life coach will guide you, and help you to make plans. You will realise what you were missing until now, before you seek guidance from someone who knows their job perfectly well.
How do life coaches motivate you?
When you seek help from a life coach, it becomes easier for you to get motivated. Life coaches do have certain techniques and strategies to help you out.
Make you take actions
The most interesting aspect of success is that it doesn’t happen on its own. No matter how many people try to tell you that you can’t force success to come to you, that’s not always the case.
You are the one who wants good things to happen to you. So you need to do something about it, right? This is where a good life coach comes in to inspire you to take effective actions.
Most of us are eager to get success, but don’t want to get out of the boundaries. However, in order to achieve greatness, you must get familiar with different kinds of settings. A good life coach teaches you the importance of getting out of your comfort zone.
Hold you responsible
Most people depend so much on other people that they don’t want to take responsibility for their own actions. This is a toxic trait to have, and you need to get out of it as soon as possible.
When you seek guidance from a life coach, the life coach will hold you responsible for your actions. As a guide, they will provide you support, review your daily progress, and give you assurance. However, at the end of the day, you and you alone are accountable for what you have done.
Why is this important? Well, the thing is that you will work hard if you know that there is no one to take a knife for you. This way, you will be able to stay focused and motivated throughout.
Create self awareness
Most life coaches meet with clients who don’t even know themselves. It’s the major root of the problem where a man has no idea where they are, where to go from here, or what to get in life. This can happen to you just in case you have no self awareness, at least not yet.
When you go to a life coach, you will be provided with a brand new perspective of the world and not to mention, about yourself. You will have a proper idea of the qualities you already have, the ones you lack and which behavior in you needs changing.
What can you gain from life coaching?
There are endless benefits of life coaching that you need to be aware of. These benefits are —
Personal growth and development
In order to change your life, you have to change your behavior and mindset. While working with a life coach, you will be able to develop strategies for self-improvement. You will learn how to stop yourself from comparing yourself to others and set your mind to improving your own.
Clarity and focus
One of the most important benefits of life coaching is that it provides you with a lot more clarity and focus. Some people don’t even know exactly what they want, and as a result they become clueless about their careers or relationships. A life coach helps you to get clarity by which you can focus on exactly what you want.
Accountability and support
Life coaching provides you support that you need the most in life. When you are working towards your goals, you need to stay motivated. A life coach helps you to stay committed and overcome any obstacle that comes in your way.
Productivity and self awareness
Most people find it hard to make time to do the things they love. Sometimes they get easily distracted and fail to set their priorities right. Life coaching teaches you how to make the most of your day by staying productive and figuring out things that really matter.
Checkout: Productivity at Workplace: Why Does it Matter and How to Boost it
Goal setting and problem solving
The best life coach knows you so well that figuring the right goals for you won’t be a problem anymore. Setting smaller goals is necessary so that you don’t lose interest in becoming someone more important.
At the same time, your life coach makes themselves updated about what you’re doing. This way, you won’t get stuck at a certain point. Even if you do get stuck, the coach will be there to get you out of it.
How to work with a life coach
One of the most important milestones we have to cover is ‘Jag ka sabse bada rog, kya kahenge log.’ Often people hesitate to take a stand for their mental health. In India the major problem for people to ask for mental health issue is that society will view them as psychopaths, which is not true.
If we face ant physical health issue we do not hesitate for a moment to go to the doctors and have check ups, then why are we not able to take a stand for our mental health. Our mental health is also as important as our physical health. So we must not ignore or neglect our mental health and ask for help from a life coach.
Communication is key while working with a life coach. To get the most out of your experience, it’s absolutely necessary for you to be open minded. You need to be honest, and fully committed to the cause.
While collaborating with a life coach, you need to be ready to express how you feel, think, and behave in public. You need to have an open conversation to discuss your expectations or what you hope to achieve through the sessions. Just make sure that you and your life coach are both on the same page.
During sessions, you have to be vulnerable, and share your thoughts with your coach without hesitation. The more open you get, the more successful the sessions will be.
However, you need to remember that no matter how much you rely on your life coach, the responsibility of your progress lies with you. Your life coach can only guide you, support you ,and provide you with insights. But how you are going to implement them is entirely up to you.
Conclusion
Just in case you are ready to transform your life, don’t hesitate to consider consulting with a life coach. Look for a qualified and experienced coach who can help you achieve your full potential. The results will definitely change your life, providing you with numerous benefits.
