If you've never worked with a life coach, you may be wondering how life coaching works and how it can help you. You may have been asking yourself questions like How do I find the right life coach that is right for me? (I've written a detailed guide on it. You can read it here). How do I enter a coaching relationship? How will a life coach actually help me? What happens in a coaching session? How long and how often will we work together? In this article, I'll answer these questions and help you understand how life coaching can help you.
Typically, before you agree to work with a coach for some time, you two will have an initial consultation. This is an important step as it allows you to get to know the coach and how s/he works so you can decide whether it would be the right life coach for you, and the coach can explore what it is you need help with and how s/he would coach you through it.
Make sure that in this initial consultation, you pay attention to how you feel speaking to the coach. Do you feel comfortable and are you getting value from the conversation? Can you see yourself regularly working with the coach for some time?
People are different, and not everyone gets along. That's ok. If you don't feel good about it, keep looking until you find the right one.
If you've found a coach you have the right chemistry with and you believe he or she will help you progress in life, then you'll most likely agree to meet for regular sessions in person or via phone/video call. Your sessions can be quite frequently, such as weekly, or less so, such as monthly. The sessions should be far apart enough so that you have enough time to progress between the session, but no so sparely that you'd fall off the track or not have enough guidance. In my experience, fortnightly is usually the perfect rhythm. There are three main ways life coaching will help you.
1) Clarity - A life coach will help you get more clarity about your situation and why you may be stuck. The coach will also help you clarify what your new goals may be and what areas you need to work on and improve. Having worked with hundreds of clients, the lack of clarity is one of the main reasons why people are not progressing in life. If you don't know what needs to be fixed or how it can be fixed, you cannot move forward.
2) Strategy - Having clarity about your goals or what needs to change is not enough to make a change. When you know what your goals are, you'll need a plan to start working towards them. Your coach should have great goal setting skills and help you create a strategic plan with steps and milestones that you can follow. This makes your progress much easier because you won't need to wonder what you need to do next. Be prepared that your plan may need some changes and improvements as you go because circumstances may change and you will need to adjust to it. It's ok. As long as you're making progress.
3) Accountability - Amazingly, some people are perfectly clear about what they need to change, they even have a plan or know how to change it, yet, they still can't get themselves to get going. This is where your coach will become extremely valuable by holding you accountable and making sure you stay on track with your plan and commitments.
Your life coach may hold you accountable from session to session or even daily through you checking in with him or her. That depends on how involved the coach is ready to be. Keep in mind, your coach should not chase you. It's your life and you should make sure that you care about it more than anyone else. If your coach is chasing you, then you're not taking it seriously enough.
Clarity, strategy and accountability are the three amazing gains you will get from working with a life coach.