Life Coaching is increasingly popular. However when asked to give a definition, most people find it hard.
On my search for a good, clear and not too long definition, I have found a few.
Here they are along with my comments:
“Coaching is a practice of helping clients determine and achieve personal goals.”
Definition by Wikipidia
For me, the important word here is goals. I can’t emphasize enough the need for goals in Life Coaching. Defining your goals is one of the first thing you will do with me as your Life Coach because you and I need to know what you will be working towards. It can be daunting for some people because the problem that brought them there in the first place is that they don’t know where they are going. But there is a structure to determine your goals and make sure those goals are powerful, inspiring and you truly have a change to achieve them.
“Coaching is partnering with clients in a thought provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.”
Definition by the International Coach Federation
The key words for me here are thought provoking and creative process. One of my main roles, as a Coach, is to challenge my clients’ thoughts. Their thoughts about who they are, what they do, what they can or cannot achieve. The objective is for the client to discover what it is they do and think that is preventing them from reaching their goals. Once they have realised that then I encourage them to think of other ways to move forward in a creative process and we practice exercises to change the way they think about themselves and others (whether it is lack of confidence, limiting beliefs, fears, …).
“Life Coaching is a form of personal intervention that is future focused, goal orientated, and concerned with enabling others to move forward with their lives or businesses more effectively than if they were doing this alone.”
Definition by the Coaching Academy
One of the key attributes of Life Coaching is that it is focused on the future. In Life Coaching, we believe that what you have been and done in the past does not need to continue and YOU CAN DECIDE to change in the present to build the future you want.
Life Coaching is ideal to help you move forward and act so you take control and build the future you want for yourself. Taking action is another important attribute of Life Coaching. Once you have set your goals, understood what you needed to change, then I will help you take little steps every time, concrete and precise actions that will take you closer and closer to your goal.
As we’ve seen, they are a lot of key words: goals, future focused, thought provoking, creative process, move forward. They all help defining what Life Coaching is about.
For me, in just a few words, what I think sums it up simply is:
Life Coaching helps people take control of their life.
