What is Life Coaching?

In the past few years, therapeutic life coaching by therapists is on the rise. How is it different from traditional therapy? Not everyone is a candidate for life coaching, but for a number of people, coaching offers some interesting and different ways to move your life forward.

Counseling traditionally focuses on pain and suffering that the patient is experiencing internally or in their relationships, and supporting the patient through those darker emotions back to more internal peace and hope. In coaching, we can also focus on accomplishments, goal setting, motivation, pleasure, peak performance, and happiness. In coaching, we can broaden our view to look at building your best life. You don't have to have a problem, or symptoms, to get coaching. You might just feel stuck, or a desire to make your life even better than it is.

Therapists who do therapeutic coaching can incorporate the two backgrounds to work with clients collaboratively to develop goals. Coaching implies a more active role for the coach than the stereotyped view of a therapist who listens and nods, but doesn't give you much feedback. Therapeutic coaches may take a more active role, disclose more at times if they feel it will help their point, give you an exercise to do, or set goals with you.

A therapeutic coach is joining with you, and on your side promoting your growth and development as a person, parent, partner, and businessperson. A coach may contact you between sessions to check in with you, where traditional therapy stays in a more restricted frame inside the therapist's office.

Traditional therapy often meets once a week for an extended period of time, where coaching may be more flexible or time-limited. Coaching can even occur by telephone consultation, which can be convenient.

Coaching skills, like being able to help motivate people, set goals, recommend next steps, and taking an active leadership role when needed are helpful in the practice of regular therapy. Being a licensed therapist with coaching skills allows you to pull from both skill sets as needed. Since the field of coaching comes with its own vocabulary, like your "growing edge," it can expand the way I think about counseling clients, shifting from a focus on symptom-reduction to focusing on higher level goals for their future as they are ready, which might include physical health, career, money, spirituality, more satisfying relationships, and personal growth.

It's always nice to have choices. Sometimes a softer, holding place in therapy is what's needed, and at other times, an individual might need more challenge, encouragement, and some advice. Therapists who can also do therapeutic coaching can offer both.

A Multi-Faceted Life

It's a mistake to have your life be too small.One tool that I often use with my coaching and counseling clients is what Susan Jeffers calls a "whole life grid". On it there are 12 to16 different squares,each of which can represent an area of your ideal life.

The squares in your life grid could include labels such as:

WORK

RELATIONSHIP WITH PARTNER

FRIENDS

SPIRITUAL LIFE

VOLUNTEER WORK/GIVING BACK

FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS

INTEELLECTUAL GROWTH

PERSONAL GROWTH

PHYSICAL HEALTH

TRAVEL PLANS

RECREATION/HOBBIES/FUN

CONTINUED LEARNING

TIME ALONE

NATURE CONNECTION

IMPROVEMENTS IN MY LIVING SPACE

FINANCIAL HEALTH

These are sample ideas to get you thinking. Then,on one sheet of paper,you make the appropriate number of boxes and label them with these titles. In each box,you write,in pencil,a goal that you would like to achieve,and one small step you can plan to take towards that goal.For example,in your friend category,you may want to expand your friendship base. The small step could be inviting someone you know, or a friend you have lost touch with,to do an activity with you.Then keep updating the steps as you complete one,and set the next.

In this way,your life begins to be more multi-faceted,and continually evolving.It is not healthy or smart to have all your eggs in one basket,or all your energy in one life box,like your job,or a relationship. The happiest and most satisfied peoplke have a broader base of support and a wide range of options and interests.Have some fun making your own whole life grid,and beginning your next steps to a more interesting life.

Your Life With Passion and Purpose

I just finished a great new book by business coach Tom Ferry called "Life By Design: 6 Steps To An Extraordinary You" (Ballantine Books, 2010). Ferry asks us each to take 100% responsibility in our relationships and at work for making them come alive with passion and purpose. Just think what would be possible if everyone stopped blaming and making excuses for things not being how we want them, and dug in to make it happen!

Ferry identifies 4 addictions which keep people from living as fully as possible. They are:

*Addiction to the opinions of others

*Addiction to drama(yours and other people's)

*Addiction to the past

*Addiction to worry

Each of these 4 addictions can become your habits, and keep you from being fully present and engaged in a creative, solution-focused life, being your best self, and sharing the highest quality of relationships with those you love. Contemplate how much easier and more fun your life might be if you gave up one of these addictions, like worrying. I believe that some of the stongest limitations on who we can become are self imposed by our beliefs. Negative self-talk is a good example of something you want to become conscious of, because it keeps you locked in old outcomes.

To increase the personal power we have over our own lives, Ferry suggests we do several things. First,release anything we feel incomplete with---perhaps old anger or grudges we are carrying around with us. Next, Ferry agrees with many writers in Psychology that we need to identify people and things we are grateful for, and express that gratitude and appreciation. Finally, we must set our intentions and declare them in positive, present-tense self-statements that we can repeat to ourselves throughout our day-to-day life. In this way, we clearly and positively state to ourselves what we wish to accomplish or experience, and channel the force of our subconscious mind working towards our intended goals, rather than against us.

I recommend Ferry's book, and like a number of the exercises he offers as ways to unleash the full potential of who you are, and stop living by default. After all, who wants to live a life by default? It's been said that the unexamined life isn't worth living. Stopping to reflect whether your life is in alignment with your core values, and whether you are making the most of your relationships, is worth some time and attention.