Tools, tips and education to help you live the life you choose

Well it is difficult to boil it down into a one line definition.  A short definition could be someone who assists you to be the best you can be.  I like to say that I help people sort out what is success for them and then empower them to achieve it.

It’ll probably help if we look at what coaching is not.  Some people use the term interchangeably with things like consulting, counselling and mentoring.  Lets have a look at what each of these groups do, plus friends and see what is different.

Starting with consulting, this is where you pay someone to go out there, research a problem and come up with a solution.  Often that is the end of the line for them, they leave you to implement their solution.  As a coach I believe everyone has the solutions for their problems and the resources to solve them.  Coaching involves helping your client to find these solutions by asking questions and making suggestions.  We then stay around to assist and support your actions and changes you make.

Counsellors are all about problems too, the difference is they focus on recovery or healing a problem by looking at your past.  As a life or success coach we look at the present and making it better and how to shape your future, getting clarity on where you want to go.  We don’t need to resolve past issues to help you move forward, sort out your goals and then reach them.  Both coaches and counsellors use similar techniques and can work together if that suits you.

So what about mentoring.  A mentor is usually someone who is further ahead in your field of expertise.  For instance, in the corporate world it could be someone higher up the management chain.  They generally provide you with support and insights they have picked up along the way to help you in your chosen field.  A coach is there to assist you with finding answers to all your life situations, not just for a particular area of your life.

Have any of you got a good friend who seems just like a success coach we have been describing here?  It is amazing when you talk to people who are starting out as coaches how often they say their friends say to them that have been coaching all the time.  The thing to realise is that not everyone has these natural talents or the skills to deal with you in a non-judgmental way, to assist you with finding the answers in your life without giving you well meaning advice.

Ok, hopefully having looked at these four examples that should help you in getting some clarity on what success coaching is.  If you want to do any of the following then a life coach can help you:

• Get clarity on where you are going
• Set your goals and help you reach them
• Learn to think big
• Identify the things or blockages that might be holding you back
• Hold you accountable on our journey, support your successes and help you through any setbacks.
• Achieve more than than you ever thought you could.

So there it is, you should now have a great idea of what success coaching is and what it can do for you.  I prefer success coaching to life coaching because when it comes down to it I think that is what people are looking for.  As I said earlier it is a case of finding out what success is for you, is it just feeling happy every day, or achieving some level of financial or corporate stature.  Whatever it is coaching can help you get clarity on it and then achieve it.  Go for it!

(By the way if you are wondering about significance of the photo to coaching, there is none that I can think of, except that it is beautiful and gives you a good feeling – just like coaching can.  I was looking for images when He came in and suggested I use one of his sunset shots so there it is – sunset from our front verandah, taken by Him).

Tags: business coaching, Coaching, coaching life, coaching mentoring, executive coaching, life coach, life coaches, life coaching, personal coaching, success coach

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 10:07 pm and is filed under Coaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.