For the last 35 years I’ve been in practice, people have been answering the same question on their Client Intake Forms: “What would you like to achieve?” Before anything else, people write one thing and one thing only, and that’s ‘confidence.’
While no one explicitly comes to see me for “confidence boosting,” people do come to me to treat specific issues like drug addiction or weight loss.
So why are they writing confidence on their forms? How does one achieve that?
Da Vinci. Picasso. Shakespeare. What is creativity? Where does it come from? I’m certainly not about to turn this blog post into a TED talk, a Jonah Lehrer article, or a college thesis.
We all know creativity when we see it, and it is a trait that most, if not all, people aspire to. Whether you’re a systems analyst, a software developer, a musician, or a mailman, every profession can benefit from some sort of creative consciousness and abilities, and every person can benefit from having a creative outlet.
While everyone might not have the talent to be a creative artist, everyone does have his or her own unique creativity.
For a lot of educators and coaches, the proof is in the pudding. If you are a barber, your hair has to look good. If you help businesses with their Google rankings, your business better be on page 1 of Google. But for other industries and skill sets, there does not need to be such a direct correlation between the teacher’s accomplishments and the subject he/she teaches.
An English professor does not need to have a Pulitzer to inspire great literary talents (nor can all literary geniuses teach!), the Yankees hitting coach doesn’t have to be an Alex Rodriguez to help Alex Rodriguez, and a life coach doesn’t have to be the father of four doctors, thirteen grandchildren; have financial success, cultural finesse, sexual intrigue, and a clean-record marriage; be faithful; and have a great rack of teeth.
No…A life coach does not give you some magic formula for the complete and perfect life. I don’t make miracles (but I make you feel miraculous). What I do as a life coach is analyze your current predicaments and pull from all potential resources to remedy those issues.
It’s piecemeal, it’s practical, and it works. A lot of people come to me thinking they need to get their life on track when really, all they need is an outside pair of eyes to see that the issue is really about a handful of very unsettling issues. While it might feel like a snowball effect, in reality, it’s a fixable set of problems.
So what does a life coach need? A life coach first needs a very good eye for the problems that affect people. He/She needs to know that one person’s unhappiness, based on the given information, might be work related and another might be relationship related. They need to be attuned and have the background and skill to pick a part the problem(s) in detail. Secondly, they need to help unmask the resources available to the client. Thirdly, and most importantly, they need to prescribe ways to implement changes based on these resources.
So redefine life coaching before you define your life coach. It will help a lot.
Almost everyone alive will tell you that they suffer or suffered some form of stress in their lives. But can they give you a definition of stress, past the standard dictionary definition? It’s important that, as your life coach, I help you define stress, so that we can measure its effects on you.
Stress is a word with many meanings. It was first used in 17th century British physicist Robert Hooke’s law (expectedly, Hooke’s Law) that states that an external force produces an equivalent amount of deformation (or strain) in metals. In this instance, stress was viewed as a stimulus, not a reaction.
A lot of times you’ll hear a life coach or conflict mediator talk about getting someone on “the right track.” I never was particularly fond of this term because there is not just one right track, but many possible tracks that could be right for you.
There are many avenues on which we can find happiness; we are forever at the foot of thousands of different trails which lead to thousands more. Life can go in so many different directions that it makes the notions of “right track”/”wrong track” almost irrelevant.