Life Coaching Sessions
I am frequently asked what happens in a Life Coaching Session, especially on a social level where people are interested in what it is you do. The most common misconception I find is that people think that they are going to be told what to do to improve their lives. To me, you can get that from friends, family, colleagues, bosses etc. who all have ideas and opinions about how you should best live your life! The coaches who work with me as their client, would not have my business if they had a whole load of answers to give me! You spend much of your life surrounded by people telling you what to do - and if you’re not happy from all their input and training, then surely try a different approach!
In my life coaching sessions, and indeed also my executive coaching sessions, the majority of the actual work is done by the client. They are, after all, the person with all the questions and often the vast majority of the answers. From my own experience, working with good coaches, it feels to me like you are sitting there having a conversation with another version of yourself. The coach asks questions that prompt you to think about your topic in a different way, or helps you consider options and outcomes for the situation. Frequently, the coach asks questions that you feel painful or you perhaps do not want to face up to, but my experience of being on the receiving end of those questions is that you have the most to gain from answering them.
During a life coaching session, the coach will frequently not speak and allow silence to flourish. My experience of these moments as a client, are wonderful - when faced with nothing else to think about than what is on your mind, the thoughts, ideas and answers that flow from you are incredible. The challenge we have in our lives is that we do not normally make time or space for this silence in which we can allow these thoughts, ideas and answers to emerge. As well, we do not generally have someone with us to keep us on track when our mind inevitably wanders.
One of the greatest gifts a coach can offer, besides helping to make change and happiness in your life, is the opportunity to be truly heard and understood. There are so few people in our lives who really “get” us or who have the time to do so and I find that many people who I coach, have not previously had the opportunity at all. Sometimes in my life coaching sessions, just a half-hour or hour of being understood can generate incredible changes in mood, emotion, thoughts, feelings and enable people to feel happy.
I believe there is a magic in coaching that is very difficult to describe, however the great thing is that it’s easy to enjoy the benefits, even if you can’t describe the magic.
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Filed under: Life Coaching, Questions — Tags: benefits, Change, Coaching, happiness, life coaching sessions, magic, understood — Dan O'Neil @ 4:56 pm
Beautifully written, Dan.
As a fellow life coach, I sometimes find myself in situations where I’m with friends and I joke around with them and tell them what I think, but then they tell me about something that bothers them and ask for my help. Oddly enough, this is when I stop telling and start asking questions. Some questions are meant to clarify, some to explore options, some to release emotions, but ultimately, giving my friends the feeling that the focus is on them and the power is in their hands to do what they will with my help, change happens and they thank me.
Keep up the good work, mate,
Gal
Be Happy in LIFE
Thanks for your comments. I love to imagine a world where everyone had this approach to their relationships - the ability to joke around and have fun, but also more importantly understanding that when someone has a real issue, you can do an enormous amount to help them simply by asking questions as you describe here.
Thanks again,
Dan
I work as a counsellor and I’m aware of the similarities in what we do as coach and counsellor. All the things that you talk about would be applicable for some counsellors too. I wonder what you think the difference is in your work as a coach?
That’s really a wonderful question - I wrote an article previously on just this thing - the difference between counselling and coaching. It strikes me that there are many counsellors who in fact practice their work in a similar way to that of a coach, however they call it counselling which is ok by me!
To me, coaching is about improving excellence - we are all already incredible and the work I do as a coach helps people to move in directions they want to go, whereas counselling tends (though not exclusively) to clear up some mess before forward movement can be undertaken.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the differences between the two and I’d like to point you to a previous post I made and the first comment, where this was discussed. http://www.aquariuscoaching.co.uk/blog/2007/09/what-is-life-coaching.html