Coaches work with clients in almost any area including personal relationships and personal growth, business, career, finances, and health. A coach
tries to help a client set better goals, take more action, make better decisions, and make use of their natural strengths. A good coach is able to carefully listen to a client, observe their behavior,
and then customize help to the individual client and elicit solutions and strategies from the client. The coach provides support and guidance to enhance skills, resources, and creativity that the client
already has. While the coach provides feedback and an objective perspective, the client is responsible for taking the steps to produce the results he or she desires.
Coaching teaches and directs through encouragement and advice. This use of the term 'coach' has been around for many years and historically related to sports. It has only been recently that non-sporting coaches have emerged. These
non-sports coaches are not experts in the specific technical skills of their clients, but they have experience and training in offering motivational and/or inspirational guidance and advice. Coaches help a person to analyze and address their own behaviors
and challenges rather than offering a great deal of specific advice or direction.
Coaches tend to specialize in one or more of several areas: career coaching, transition coaching, executive coaching, business coaching, systemic coaching, organizational or corporate coaching, and life or personal coaching.
The terms Personal Coach and Life Coach are often used interchangeably. Life and personal coaching is based
on the client's expressed interests, goals, and objectives. The initial task involves the coach and client working out a mutual understanding of the scope of work and documenting that understanding often in the form of a contract. Then the coach helps
the client prioritize needs and look for ways to facilitate improvement.
A Personal Coach may use inquiry, reflection, requests, and discussion to help a client to identify personal, business, and/or relationship goals, and then to develop strategies and action plans. Through the process of coaching, clients determine what
steps they need to take and the coach helps the client to be accountable by monitoring progress. In general, coaches do not give a lot of specific advice and they do not offer therapy. A Personal Coach acts as a mirror for clients by sharing an outside
and unbiased perspective on what they are observing about the client.
There has been, and continues to be, controversy about 'coaches and coaching' in that there are no official regulatory standards for coaches and there exists a wide variety of certificate and credential designations. Accordingly, little if any formal
training is required for a person to call themselves a coach and to offer their services. Additionally, in many circles, the practice of life and personal coaching is seen as a method of practicing psychological counseling and therapy but without the
training, restrictions, oversight, or regulation of the psychological profession. In its design, personal and life coaching is not counseling or therapy. However, in practice, the distinctions are often blurred. Coaching does, in fact, draw from a
wide variety of disciplines, including sociology, psychology, counseling, and mentoring, and a coach may indeed use many of the same techniques (for example, values assessment, behavior modification, behavior modeling, and goal-setting) that are used
in psychological counseling and therapy. |
If you really want help dealing with your feelings and emotions, changing your behavior, and improving your life and the approach and office hours of typical therapists and counselors do not fit your life style or personal needs, I may have a solution.
By using very flexible office appointments, telephone consultations, email, teleconferences, and the willingness to travel and meet with you personally in your home, office, or other location, I can be available to help you anytime and anywhere.
Feel free to contact me now for your free initial consultation. Once you become an existing client, you will be given a pager number where you can reach me whenever you need. |
