What will I gain from a life coach?

A coach invites you to step back and get a different perspective on the day-to-day aspects of your life. I will help you create a balanced life that works well because you designed it to meet your needs. You may ask yourself...

Why can't I do it on my own?  

A coach will give you dedicated time to focus on you. I will help you explore and facilitate the journey to where you want to go and what you want to achieve. On your own, you may not consider giving yourself the time to truly focus on yourself.

Realistically, what can life coaching achieve?

Life coaching cannot solve all your life's problems but it can reveal how to meet life's challenges with poise and creativity. You are responsible for all your life's choices and how you conduct your life and how you feel is ultimately down to you. I will offer a fresh perspective and help you be realistic about what you are trying to achieve. I will enable you to access the resources you need to respond creatively to your current or future life demands...the vast majority of these resources are located within you.

How does life coaching differ from therapy or mentoring?

Therapy deals with healing pain, dysfunction and conflict within an individual or in relationships. The focus is often on resolving difficulties arising from the past that hamper an individual's emotional functioning in the present, improving overall psychological functioning, and dealing with the present in more emotionally healthy ways.

Mentoring is done by somebody more senior to you with their own set of beliefs and values. What they say may be helpful but it will invariably be their point of view which may not be totally useful for you.

Coaching supports personal and professional growth based on self-initiated change in pursuit of specific actionable outcomes. These outcomes are linked to personal or professional success. Coaching is future focused. While positive feelings/emotions may be a natural outcome of coaching, the primary focus is on creating actionable strategies for achieving specific goals in one's work or personal life.

How is coaching different to the support I get from my partner or best friend?

Your partner or best friend, however well intentioned, is biased about the way they think about you and what you need. As your coach, I will put aside my own beliefs and values and help you focus on yours. I do not have solutions for you but I am here to help you find your own solutions, appropriate to you. This is likely to be much more powerful and more likely to lead to success, on your terms.

Is it better to hold sessions face to face or over the phone?

This is a matter of your personal preference and also dependent on where you are located. However, face-to-face coaching has certain advantages in that it enables me to observe and respond to your body language as well as listen to what you say. This can, though not necessarily so, make for a closer relationship. Coaching over the telephone or online is extremely efficient and it allows you to be coached in the comfort of your own home or office.