SIGNPOSTS
Life Coaching
by Tali Weiss
Many people ask me, "What's a life coach? Is it consulting people? Is it some kind of therapist? Is it a fitness coach?"
Life coaching has helped many people (including yours truly) to improve their lives by feeling and understanding that it is possible to live a fulfilled and a happy life.
Coaching is partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximise personal and professional potential.
Coaching recognises human potential and understands what restrains it and how to unleash it. It aims significantly to reduce the internal and external interferences that exist between potential and performance.
Research and history show us that individuals and organisations rarely achieve lasting improvement when people are merely told about concepts and practices or made to change. But lasting and powerful change is achieved when people:
recognise the need to improve and believe improvement and achievement are entirely possible;
develop clear and compelling goals;
identify strengths and areas for improvement in a positive, non-threatening way, recognising that this will lead to improvement rather than focusing on criticism, failure, errors or problems.
Coaching is not a casual discussion; it is hard work. Through coaching, the organisation or individual completes tangible actions - small steps that add up to the overall goal. This approach makes coaching well suited to the challenges of the modern corporate environment.
At its best, coaching is non-directive: it does not teach, advise or seek to control people or to impose solutions. It instead enables people to use their internal and external resources to pursue their goals effectively.
This technique is at the heart of successful coaching and differentiates it from consultancy, psychological therapy, traditional teaching and traditional management.
The big question is how to do it? There are five terms for a change to be possible:
There must be a specific goal you want to achieve;
There must be a gap between who you are now and who you want to be (this could be in any field of life - work, studies, income or relationships, for instance);
There must be a request by the trainee to make a change (not his wife, husband, boss, sister, mother-in-law);
The trainee must request two very important friends' commitment and responsibility. Without them there will be no change.
The process must be guided by a certified professional life coach.
Tali Weiss is a certified life coach and member of the International Association of Coaching (IAC). Contact: info@coachinghk.org
