Life Coaching can help improve your mindset and be a life-altering experience.
Coaching can help push you forward, solve complex problems, and achieve long-term goals and dreams.
Finding a coach you can connect with is essential, but putting in the workweek in and week out to achieve your end goals. Coaching allows you to share ideas, get thoughts out, and co-create a step-by-step plan to get where you want to go.
Coaching can have a substantial impact on your mindset. It can help illuminate and eliminate problem areas you’re facing as well as highlight healthy areas. The Coaching process is unique and will take you on a journey that can help create healthier habits and help you begin experiencing a new and improved mindset.
I was always intrigued by life coaching ever since my twenties but never knew a lot about it. Preconceived notions aside, I knew very little about what life coaching was and how powerful of a tool it could be to achieve what you want out of life.
In my thirties, after doing some research, I decided to take the leap and earn my life coaching certificate. After six months of training, practice, and plenty of studying, I reached my goal of becoming a certified life coach. It has been a fun ride to this point, and I intend to perfect and hone my coaching skills throughout the coming years.
But for those of you unfamiliar or hesitant about hiring a coach, let’s give you a little background on life coaching.
WHAT IS LIFE COACHING?
The International Coaching Federation (ICF) defines life coaching as “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.”
It’s important to remember that life coaching is NOT psychotherapy or consulting.
WHAT DO LIFE COACHES DO?
Life coaches help people to reach their personal and professional potential, depending on the client. Coaches can meet with clients in person, virtually, or on the phone, and most sessions run from forty-five minutes to an hour, depending on the coach and the setup.
Professional coaches ask a series of questions to dig deeper into a client’s problem or issue to help find resolutions and wisdom. Professional Coaching is rooted in neuroscience and backed by years of research.
WHAT DO LIFE COACHES NOT DO?
Life coaches do not treat or diagnose mental illness or mood disorders, consult or tell their clients what to do, and give personal opinions on their client’s issues or problems.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIFE COACHING AND PSYCHOTHERAPY?
The ICF states that “Coaching focuses on visioning, success, the present and moving toward the future. Therapy emphasizes psychopathology, emotions, and the past to understand the present, and it works more with developing skills for managing emotions or past issues than does Coaching.”
Coaching focuses more on the future, whereas therapy focuses on a client’s history.
Therapists and other mental health professionals focus more on diagnosing and treating mental health conditions. They also help clients work through past trauma and other issues that originated in the past.
Although life coaches can help deal with specific unresolved past issues, they cannot heal or treat things such as anxiety and mood disorders, addiction, or any other mental health condition.
Both can be beneficial, depending on the client’s situation and needs.
WHY IS LIFE COACHING USEFUL?
Life coaching can be highly beneficial for many reasons. If you are navigating a significant life event such as a career change, starting a business, going through a divorce, or feeling unfulfilled, life coaching can make a positive impact.
Life coaches can help clients achieve a more meaningful and happy life.
There are a number of signs that you may need a life coach:
- High levels of anxiety or stress
- Feelings of irritability
- Lack of fulfillment in daily life
- Difficulty breaking bad habits
- Blocked creativity
- A persistent feeling of dissatisfaction in a career
Life coaches can help their clients by:
- Holding them accountable
- Achieving more in a reasonable time
- Delivering thought-provoking questions
- Getting them clear on goals
- Digging down to the root of the problem
DIFFERENT TYPES OF LIFE COACHING
Every life coach, or at least the majority, has a niche or target industry or area of expertise.
There are dozens of life coaching niches that coaches specialize in, which ultimately depend on each coach and their skills and interests.
Some of the prominent areas of Coaching include:
- General Life Coaching (organizational skills, goal setting, time management, etc.)
- Business Coaching
- Health & Wellness Coaching
- Relationship & Dating Coaching
- Mindset Coaching
- Leadership Coaching
- Career Coaching
- Executive Coaching
- Communication Coaching
- Family or Parenting Coaching
When you figure out which coach is best suited for you, always look at their niche specialty areas. This will help you narrow down who will be the best fit for you.
WHY MINDSET IS IMPORTANT
Mindset is defined as “a mental attitude or inclination.” Your mindset is the driver of your choices, decisions, habits, and the direction of your life. If you have a healthy mindset, you will make healthier decisions that will positively impact your life. Conversely, if you have an unhealthy mindset, especially over a prolonged period, you will make unhealthy decisions that negatively impact your life.
I can attest to this firsthand. I look back at specific times in my life when I was at a low point or engaging in some unhealthy activity, and usually, one of the main culprits was my unhealthy mindset. For example, when I felt depressed or overly anxious, I would binge eat and eat late at night. Doing this had a negative impact on my sleep, my diet, and my overall well-being. I gained weight in the wrong areas, felt like crap, and became lazier and unmotivated because of my consistently eating junk food.
As soon as I started to change my mindset and become a healthier version of myself, my diet changed for the better.
You can be the wealthiest, best-looking, most well-versed person on the planet, but you will suffer the consequences if your mindset is not in a good place.
LIFE COACHING AND MINDSET
Life coaching and mindset are intertwined for many reasons. They go hand-in-hand because Coaching is dependent on the client developing and maintaining a healthy long-term mindset.
You cannot achieve your dreams and goals with a lackluster mindset.
Coaching can help you create a mindset that is ideal for you to achieve those long-term goals. With the help of a coach, you can create a mindset that fits you and the vision of your future self to accomplish all that you set out to do.
Coaching is a beautiful avenue towards improving and maintaining a healthy mindset.
But how can you achieve this?
1. HELPS YOU REVIEW YOUR CURRENT MINDSET
In this hectic face-paced world we live in, just being able to get your thoughts out to a trusted person is like lifting a tremendously heavy weight off the shoulders of your mind. One of the significant advantages of life coaching is being able to review your current mindset. When we become trapped in patterns of negative thinking, anxiety, or rumination, it can be difficult to fully see our unhealthy thought patterns until someone points them out. A well-trained coach will ask pointed questions to tease out the wisdom you have inside of you. They will help you understand your current mindset and also assist you in creating a healthier mindset.
2. GIVES YOU AN UNBIASED THIRD-PARTY VIEW OF YOUR SITUATION
Coaches offer the opportunity to share your experience with an unbiased third party. People are often afraid or embarrassed to share their inner thoughts or larger goals with those around them; this can be due to multiple factors, including people around them reactivating negatively or even hostilely. A life coach can offer that unbiased third-party ear and perspective that can be the catalyst to achieving your desired goals. Sometimes all you need is to be heard and seen by an unbiased coach who has your best interest at heart.
3. ALLOWS YOU TO BOUNCE IDEAS AROUND WITHOUT JUDGEMENT
Sharing your thoughts with a coach also allows you to bounce ideas around about how you can attain your ultimate goals. Going back to the first two items on this list, share your thoughts with a trained, unbiased third party who has your best intentions at heart can help you see the sunshine through the clouds. Sharing ideas with your coach is an excellent way to build the solid foundation you’ll need to accomplish your goals. You may be stuck in a particular area of your life, not able to move forward. A coach can help co-create a plan of action to get you unstuck and on your way towards your desired results.
4. ASKS YOU THOUGHT-PROVOKING QUESTIONS
The key to any life coach worth their weight is asking thought-provoking questions. Through these questions, coaches will tease out the wisdom within you to help solve your problems and create your step-by-step action plan. These questions should hit on every aspect of your particular situation. They should make you consider multiple points of view and stances within different situations. These questions are the root of all life coaching; they make coaching such a unique and powerful experience for the client.
5. DIGS DOWN TO THE ROOT OF YOUR PROBLEMS
Often, clients might not understand the root of their problems or the barriers standing in their way until they speak to a life coach. Coaches ask questions to dig deeper and gain a broader knowledge of their clients to help them discover what is holding them back from achieving their goals. Once the client gets to the root of their problems, it allows them to figure out ways to resolve those problems and find a clear path towards their goals.
6. KEEPS YOU FOCUSED ON THE NEXT TASK
One of the most challenging aspects of overcoming obstacles and achieving goals and dreams is breaking down significant goals into smaller, manageable tasks. Certified coaches are trained at helping their clients stay focused on their next task. After every session, coaches will typically ask you about what next step(s) you’ll be taking. They can also help you break down your more significant steps into smaller ones so you can accomplish everything you set out to do. Coaching will give you the foundation you need to achieve your bigger dreams and goals by staying on task.
7. HOLDS YOU ACCOUNTABLE
Having an accountability partner is a huge benefit of hiring a life coach. Accountability for yourself is the most critical aspect of achieving any long-term goal, but having a partner to help keep you on track can pay off significant dividends. There will be days and weeks when you’re simply NOT feeling up to the challenge of getting your following tasks done, and you might even feel like quitting at times. During these times, having a coach to hold you accountable will help keep you on the straight and narrow. Accountability is crucial in many areas of life, and when it comes to Coaching, it’s one of the most critical elements. If you’re trying to improve your mindset, accountability is an absolute must.
IN REVIEW
Life coaching has so many inherent and long-term benefits, all of which help with improving mindset. Whether assessing and reviewing your current state of mind, co-creating a new pathway forward, keeping you on task, or holding you accountable, Coaching can give you that extra boost you need to keep going. Coaching can also help you develop ideas you might not have tried previously or might’ve written off as silly or unrealistic. Having a co-creative partner to help you clear a path forward can work wonders on creating a new, healthier mindset.
Although we strive to provide accurate general information, the information presented here is not a substitute for any kind of professional advice, and you should not rely solely on this information. Always consult a professional in the medical and health area for your particular needs and circumstances prior to making any medical or health-related decisions. For your health-related questions, please seek the advice of a licensed physician or any other qualified health care provider immediately.
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