Your Guide to Finding the Perfect Life Coach
The Impact of a Life Coach
High level athletes are well known for their ability to push themselves to their limits. They are always finding new ways to become better and execute at their highest level. Now, you can choose to believe that these athletes are able to do it all themselves. Or you can take a look behind the scenes and see that all these athletes have something in common, coaches.
Executive, career, and life coaches are becoming more and more mainstream. Having another pair of eyes to help you hold up a mirror to your habits, behaviors, and feelings creates the space for growth. Life coaching is about having someone in your corner with the ability to draw out the best version of you and show you how good you are. Life coaches can support you to go from staying afloat in your life to captaining your own ship.
Trickling Down from the Executive Suite to the Mainstream
Coaching started in sports and its effects quickly moved into the C-suite. Executives use coaches to hone their skills. If you’re anything like me, you are often awestruck by the level of energy and performance these people deliver. They are often supported by mentors, colleagues, and coaches. Coaches have become mainstream for executives in challenging business situations, finding work-life balance, and reaching optimal performance.
Now, coaching is becoming more and more available to everyone. With a drive to make coaching more available, certification and training programs are popping up everywhere. Executive coaching is necessary to support high achievers. But individual coaching will provide more people access to these services. Coaches aim to bring high performance and transformative change to everyone, even you.
Things to Think About When Choosing a Coach
The world of Life coaching has exploded. Many people are choosing to take courses and even open their own practices. There are many things that you should consider when picking your coach:
Style of Coaching
Advice based Coaching: Advice based coaching operates under the assumption that the coach is more knowledgeable than you. The coach will offer advice and build plans to support you without consulting your knowledge and perspective. This exists in sports coaching, personal training, and similar coaching situations. Advice based coaching keeps the power in the hands of the coach and can often lead to a reliance on the coach (Known as Chronic Coaching; see below). This type of coaching is useful when someone has no knowledge and requires hand-holding through the process. Sometimes this is required to help you get a firm understanding of certain principles. Eventually, to avoid chronic coaching, a coach should switch to the curiosity model.
Curiosity based Coaching: Curiosity based coaching operates with the assumption that you are whole and capable of solving their own problems. The coach acts as a mirror for you to look critically at their own behaviors and ideas to come up with a solution. This helps you see yourself and your situation from a new perspective. Curiosity based coaching is best used when you are making life altering decisions, looking to expand your understanding of yourself, and become the best version of you.
Types of Coaches
Transformation Coach: Coaches who specialize in helping clients gracefully transition through major life changes.
Career/Executive Coach: Coaches who support clients in finding a new career, advancing their current career, and becoming a better leader.
Dopamine/Biohacking Coach: Coaches with expertise on helping you manage moderately addictive behaviors (social media, video games, shopping, ect.) and making the body and brain work at its best. This will begin to bleed into your life and you will see a more loving relationship with your spouse or finally get that promotion.
Business Coach: Coaches who specialize in supporting those who are starting their own businesses.
Relationship Coach: Coaches who specialize in supporting clients navigate romantic and non-romantic relationships.
There are many other types of coaches and you will likely be able to find one to help your specific situation. A well trained coach is able to support in all areas of life by utilizing curiosity based coaching. So find someone you work well with and they will be able to coach you in most situations.
Credentials
Coaching is an unmoderated profession at the writing of this blog. Meaning anyone can be a coach, no training is required. Be sure to vet your coach and make sure that they have received training. If you want to go above and beyond, find out where they received their training and credentialing. Make sure it comes from a reputable source like the CCA or International Coaching Federation.
Ask your coach about their style of coaching and make sure that it is what you are looking for. Excellent coaches often cost more but cheap, untrained coaches can do a lot more harm than good.
Mentoring or Coaching?
Mentoring is very similar to advice based coaching. The dynamic is that one person is considered an expert, while the other is the learner. This leads to a power dynamic where the mentor is usually correct and the client will learn from them.
In coaching the power dynamic is non-existent. Coaches approach you with a partnering mentality, working with you to draw out new insights and perspectives. Coaches assume you are an expert of your own life and help you to see that.
Therapy or Coaching?
Therapy and coaching are often compared and contrasted against each other, and for good reason. To make this as simple as possible:
Therapy targets the past and present. The goal is to diagnose what is happening now and find out why it is that way. This is done by focusing into the past, looking for trauma and reason behind behavior.
Coaching targets the present and future. The goal is to understand the present, create new perspectives and insights in the present, and look to the future to set goals and achieve them. This is done by assuming that you will solve your own problems through new perspectives and insights.
Coaching and therapy can be done hand in hand to support you and will often lead to amazing results. If your therapist or coach tells you otherwise, run.
Things to Avoid
When looking for the perfect coach, there are some things that you will want to keep an eye out for.
Cheap, Subscription Based Programs
These are popping up everywhere. “Affordable” coaching programs where there are courses and content available at the click of a button. This is really exciting to many, its cost effective and promises to offer the same level of service as a coach without the price tag.
But there’s a dark side.
These programs are commonly difficult to follow, drown you in content, and make it incredibly difficult to progress and learn. Then when you feel overwhelmed, they will swoop in to upsell their services to help you become organized and get where you want to go. Then half a year later you look up and realize they drained the last dollar from your savings account and you’re no further along than when you started.
Chronic Coaches
This type of service is found in any helping profession. The people who want to keep you unhealthy and reliant on their services, thus making you continue to come back. These types of coaches want to help just enough that you stay their client, but not enough to make you independent and powerful. This leads to a reliance on the coach and a crutch for the client.
Helping professionals should have an end goal in mind: To have their client be independent and autonomous of their services. This doesn’t mean that the client doesn’t come back for a tune up or help in difficult situations. But if you’re meeting with the same helping professional for many years without significant progress, you’re stuck with a chronic helper.
Bringing Out the Best in You
The goal of life coaches is universal across their various specialties: To make you realize that you are whole, autonomous, and enough. Your coach will work with you to bring out your best and you should see massive shifts in your mindset and performance. Whether you're managing a team, making big life transitions, or just trying to maximize your time and resources, a coach will help. You do not have to struggle through life by yourself, find a coach that is right for you and begin to thrive.
