Life coaching?

[John Guanzon]

I have never heard of this concept before? This really intrigues me. How does this work, and what are the implications of this skill, concept, or idea. Thanks before hand for any info given on this.

[Paddy Landau]

It's a bit difficult, because of the different ideas behind "Life Coaching". For example, Tony Robbins calls himself a life coach; and we see some really strange things going on in the name of Life Coaching on TV!

"Proper" Life Coaching - that is, the skill that is taught at Life Coaching schools and has come about after much research, development and invention - has, at its core, an active listening component.

Now, active listening is hardly new, but Life Coaching takes it to a whole new plane. It also borrows a few pointers from NLP, and adds a few methods of its own.

Life Coaching starts by assuming (as NLP does) that the client already has all the necessary resources. It also assumes that the client has all the answers (but just doesn't realise it).

It goes on to draw out, in a way that to this day leaves me amazed every time it happens, the answers from the client.

Life Coaching had a huge boost when Sir John Whitmore and W Timothy Gallwey had a coaching school for tennis players and skiers. They were using this "new" form of coaching that had been developed. When they ran out of tennis coaches one day, they dressed their ski instructors (who knew nothing about tennis) in tennis clothes, gave them each a tennis racket, and told them under no circumstances to try to hit the ball!

They had a massive surprise. The tennis players improved hugely under the coaching of the ski instructors, way beyond what the tennis coaches had been achieving.

It didn't take long before business in America found that this "new" way of coaching worked not only for sport, but also in improving the efficiency of executives. Thus was born "Life Coaching" for executives, then for business people in general, and, of course for individuals (after all, an executive is but an individual).

The "life coaching" that you see on TV - even by qualified life coaches - is nothing whatsoever like formal Life Coaching, and it makes me laugh whenever I see it on TV.

Nancy Kline did some amazing research into why sometimes kids would be creative and have fantastic insights, yet other times the same kids would be dull and uninspired. She wrote the results in her book Time to Think. It introduces her concepts in a fantastic way, and IMO is a "must read" for parents, spouses and teachers (among others). Although it's not Life Coaching, Kline has had a direct effect on its development. This is one of my all-time favourite books.

Paddy
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Hypnotherapy, EFT, NLP, Life Coaching

[John Guanzon]

So what I am getting from this is that a life coach is someone who helps inspire someone else, to help them achieve their goals? Let me know if I am warm here. Thanks Paddy.

[Paddy Landau]

No. That's often a side-effect, but not the primary purpose. As Dan Pe?a says, "Those feel-good programmes have it the wrong way around. Instead of feeling good and then trying to succeed, rather first succeed and then you will feel good!"

Take sport as an example. You can inspire and set goals to your heart's content, but you won't improve someone's golf like that.

Similarly with a housewife who wants more from life, or an executive who is struggling to cope with a half-motivated workforce in a tough market.

Consider one of my clients, a favourite because of the type of change, a woman on social security. (Let's call her Paula - not her real name.) She had been stuck on social security since birth, as were her parents. Her husband had left her a couple of years before, leaving her with three children to look after.

Paula had had the realisation that she wanted to get out of this dependency cycle, but had no clue how to do it. She didn't even think it could be done. In fact, she didn't even know, "What do I want to do?".

This woman had spent a couple of years massively improving herself, learning positivity, opening her mind, working on her beliefs, doing goal-setting, and so forth.

But, still stuck.

And this is the problem many of us face. When in the middle of the wood, we see the grey tree trunks, hear the gloomy wind above and around us, and can't feel anything but the cold reality of being "stuck".

And we are stuck. Not because someone stuck us there with a pot of glue, but because we don't know how to look up to see the sunlight, or down to see the paths leading out; how to listen for the sounds of birds, help and freedom; and how to feel our way out.

I had a friend who had been trying to learn how to drive. After dozens of lessons (costing loads of money) over a couple of years, she still couldn't pass. When I took her for a test drive, to my shock I found that she couldn't even park, reverse, or take off without stalling several times!

Even a successful executive, already running a successful business and enjoying it, can make use of coaching. Such as one chap who came to me, who had "got stuck" in his own successful business. (It's tough at the top, isn't it!)

Now, coaching does something interesting. It uses two key concepts: Awareness and responsibility. However, the method it uses is unique. I've never seen anything like it anywhere else (and definitely never on TV!).

Coaching mostly uses, in its essence, carefully worded questions. (Not advice, but questions.) The form of the questions (and some other aspects) draws out of the client a profound awareness of the his own possibilities, resources and abilities.

I offered to take on my friend for driving. For coaching, not for instruction. Now, as I said, coaching raises awareness and responsibility (among other things). So, that's what I did with my friend. I used questions to raise her awareness and responsibility. She took them both enthusiastically, and in just a few sessions, could reverse, park, start without stalling...

Anyway, Paula had come to me for her problem. Using coaching, rather than NLP or anything else, in a series of 12 sessions she realised what she wanted to do, how to do it, and did it!

Paul now proudly serves her community, working with charity work that she has set up, while filling her soul with creativity and even making some money along the way.

She needed no inspiring; she was already inspired when she came to me. She needed no help in achieving her goals; she'd already had tons of help. She didn't need a mentor. Paula simply needed to know how to do it, and to do it.

So, you see, in none of these cases did I use inspiration or help. Never any advice. (I confess to having mentored a little, but it was only a tiny bit, and then only to raise awareness.)

As a side-note, bizarrely, coaching for non-physical work (i.e. not for driving, golf and so forth) usually works best on the telephone. No one knows why, although some of my colleagues have their theories. I think that the absence of body language helps the thinking process (very different from other therapies, where body language is usually of great help).

Does that help answer your question, John?

Paddy

[John Guanzon]

............yes. lol, thanks Paddy!

[newbie]

Don't you think that life coaching is (or can be) interperet more broadly than that? I actually went to a career counseling for ideas about the direction I should take in my career -- and now I have a new job but still see the counselor as a life coach. It's almost like a good friend that will actually tell you the truth (and you pay)! Would you not consider this a life coach?

[Paddy Landau]

[hypno-therapist]

Hi All,

Isn't it funny how the informal definition can sometimes become the 'informal' formal definition in societies eyes!

[littlefranciscan]

Life coaching is helping a person realize their potential? Is this correct? We all have abilities and some of them lay dormant; thus, the life coach would assist us to use all our abilities and to recognize them as they are?

[lightseeker]

I've always wanted to have a life coach but, the severe absence of them where I live aside, I've always been wary that I might develop a kind of severe dependence to my life coach. I can be very dependent. I think it's a youngest born thing

[littlefranciscan]

I don't know that I get dependant on people as attached to them. It doesn't take long for me, once I know a person, to become a good friend.
My difficulty of seeking out life coaching would be that difficulty of becoming too attached.

[Paddy Landau]

[lightseeker]

[Paddy Landau]

[CloudxxY]

I am quite confused myself on this topic. After reading your article, I feel that life coaching is technique that makes your mind think do that then be happy. For example, you have studied for a mid-term test very hard. You take the test and it seems easy to you and you are very happy. I interpret that life coaching teaches you the opposite; take the test and once the results come be happy. Am I somewhat close?