A life coach helps you to move your life forward and to find fulfillment, success, well-being and happiness. They can help you to pinpoint the blocks or obstacles that are making you feel “stuck” and help you to move through them. They may also guide you through a life transition, such as finding a new career, or looking to start a new relationship.
You might call them a “change facilitator” or a “courage catalyst”.
A life coach is not a therapist. They will focus mostly on looking toward your future, rather than dealing primarily with your past.
While they may offer you suggestions, new ideas or action steps, they are not advice-givers. Instead, they listen to you and ask you the right questions to help you find your path, your truth, and your answers. Then they help you to align your life with who you are and what you want.
Good coaching focuses on an individual's strengths and aims to help the client achieve what they want more of in life and at work. The goal? To help the client identify and achieve their greater goals and to help them live a better life. A good coach isn't there to "fix" anyone, but to help the client navigate toward a more engaged and compelling future
Clients can achieve remarkable progress toward their desired future in less than an hour per month of coaching. There is a wide spectrum of how coaching is delivered. Some coaches prefer to meet one-on-one with clients in an office, but most recommend telephone sessions for the ease of use, minimization of distractions, better privacy, greater efficiency, and for (yes, apparently) better connection to the client. Best practices in coaching call for between two and four sessions per month.
Your coach may be friendly, but they are not your friend. Your coach is your advocate. They want the best from you. They will work with you to help you reach your goals and to succeed. Your coach will hold you accountable and challenge you to grow and do more than you think you can do. They may push, pull, and stretch you in ways that may feel uncomfortable. And unlike a friendship, the coaching relationship is unilateral - it is exclusively focused on you and your goals, not the coach, his family, his golf handicap, or what she did over the weekend.