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Have you heard the term “Life Coach” and are curious what a life coach is exactly? A life coach can help empower you to set new goals with actionable steps to achieve them. The role of a life coach is much different than the role of a counselor or psychotherapist. I go into further detail below. Also, I explain what happens in a life coaching session.
Is this you? – I am feeling lost and misguided in my life. All my friends are succeeding in their careers and relationships and I am just at home watching Netflix. I desperately wanted more for my life, but I didn’t know where to start. Traveling is something I want to do, but I am too afraid to travel alone. My confidence is at an all-time low, and my friends just don’t understand.
Those are just a few of the most common statements I hear from my clients. If those statements resonate with you, and you are wanting to take action…Keep reading!
What Happens in a Life Coaching Session
The purpose of a life coach session is to assist in helping you overcome struggles and set achievable goals. It all starts with a conversation about what areas of your life you want to transform.
What is different between a life coaching session vs a counseling or therapy session? Life coaching only focuses on the present and future. Counseling or therapy has you focus on the past to help you unearth pain points that need to be addressed.
Life coaching is dedicated support to help you move forward in life, empowering you to achieve your goals. And ultimately transform your life.
There are many coaches for either your personal or professional life, but the coaching formula is all the same. Focus on the present and future to help the client with specific goals. A coach will work with you to help you overcome weaknesses, develop new skills, move past limiting beliefs, and more.
The benefits from coaching sessions are effective frameworks for dealing with the struggles of daily life. Especially in these strange times, it’s increasingly important.
Basic Structures of Life Coaching Sessions
At a personal and professional life coaching session, you want to be ready to explain the obstacles you are facing. As well as the specific goals you want to accomplish. Just sitting down and saying, I hate my life, and everything is terrible, please fix it, isn’t going to work.
Below I explain the steps of life coaching with some common issues clients seek a life coach to help solve.
Step 1 – Establishing the Areas of Your Life for Transformation
In the first step, the client meets with the coach to familiarize them with the current issue they are having. The issue for the sake of this example is the client is feeling particularly lost or stuck in their daily life. The client is asked to describe what “stuck” or “lost” means to them in more detail.
Feeling overwhelmed with a sense of misalignment is common in what happens in a life coaching session. The main benefit of having a coach is having someone hold space for you to work out these feelings.
Step 2 – Establishing Specific Goals for Coaching Sessions
It is important for the client to establish their goals for these coaching sessions, this is the second step. A life coach is not meant to be a long-term commitment, unlike therapy. There should be specific goals to meet so that an action plan can be set.
For our example, the client who feels lost and stuck has been struggling with their overall daily life and job. In the conversation of step one, it’s established they want to make life changes. In order to transform their life, they want to explore the idea of another career path and travel more.
After the client gets clear on what they want from their transformation, the goals are set for a new career and traveling more.
Step 3- Set Goals and Establish an Action Plan
Now that goals have been set the action plan can be more defined. A life coach could be compared to a personal trainer, someone to keep you accountable.
Just like in fitness training, the results are up to you! And EVERYTHING is possible. For your personal development, these coaching session plans can be vital to your success. The reason you get a coach is to aid in achieving your goals.
Action plans are small commitment plans, that inch you along to your goal. This is where you can start baby steps towards reaching your full transformation life transformation. In our example, the client is not sure about what type of career they want to explore. But they have a goal of traveling more and want to go on a weekend getaway.
The client sets the goal of taking a short trip to clear their head. It will also be a chance to start to think of different careers they would like to explore. The progress of this goal is often discussed in the next session.
Step 4 – The Overview at the End of the Session
What happens in a life coaching session after each session? The coach will do a wrap-up of what had been discussed. It is likely you will plan for another session to review the progress made from the action plan. It is typical that most clients see the results they are after in six weeks. Depending on the specific goals set by the client and coach.
For our example, the client has a goal of taking a weekend trip to do some soul searching. Part of the action plan is to think about what they truly love doing. On the trip makes a list of all the careers that interest them for review in the next session.
Finding The Best Coach For You!
When you are searching for a life coach ask yourself the following:
- Does this coach have information on their coaching process? (ie. What techniques will they use in their coaching sessions?)
- Does the process of their coaching style align with my core beliefs in life? (ie. If you are religious, you may want to find a coach that incorporates your faith in their practice.)
- Does this coach have a niche that aligns with my situation? (ie. Are you single and this coach specializes in helping married people?) It is very important that you choose a coach that can be on your level.
- Is this coach certified by the ICF (International Coach Federation)?
Are All Coaches Certified with the International Coach Federation?
Technically speaking, you don’t need to be certified to be a life coach. But, there is an international coach federation in that many coaches are certified. I am personally certified through the ICF coaching program.
Are You Ready For What Happens In A Life Coaching Session?
Now you have a broad overview of what happens in a life coaching session. Are you ready to book a FREE 15-minute session? There is no commitment. It’s just a phone call to see if coaching is right for you!
If you have concluded that you would benefit from coaching I would love to hear from you!
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