My personal favorite original (as far as I know) definition at the moment is "genius extractor." I help you find your genius.
Life coaching is also like soap for our minds. It's a tool for helping us rid ourselves of impurities and old debris in our thinking patterns.
There are many different styles and approaches to life coaching. Essentially, life coaching fits under the umbrella of mental health, but I believe progressive or exceptional mental health is an even better descriptor. The coaching style I use is called “causal coaching,” meaning we investigate the cause of why you’re not obtaining the results you may want. We explore your thinking and how it relates to actions that will lead to results that serve you. Our thinking, ultimately, is the “cause” of all our results.
When coaching is done strictly by manipulating action, it often doesn’t have lasting effects. Trying to change situations or other people is emotionally exhausting, and often impossible. Causal coaching frees up mental space, allowing you to show up in the world more how you want, rather than feeling like a victim of circumstances.
A life coach is someone who can help you get perspective on your life and your mind. Coaching takes healthy people and helps them make their good lives awesome, and is future focused. Coaching is “mind training,” and more often than not, a game changer for good.
* Unconditional love - You're perfect just the way you are!
* Judgment free zone - I understand that what is going on inside your head is not who you are.
* Confidentiality - If anyone knows the content of our sessions, it will come from you, not me.
A devoted coach will risk losing you as a client in order to help you see thought errors. Friends don’t usually jeopardize the friendship and will just commiserate with your story or situation. Friends can offer sympathy, but often don’t know how to help you take your power back. If you just need someone to share your issues with, by all means, go the friend route. If you need someone to help you see how you can take control of your thinking and your results, employ a life coach.
The Model is a framework and tool for life coaching. The five components of the Model are:
* Circumstances – Things that happen in the world that we can’t control: people, our past, the weather, etc.
* Thoughts – The meaning we give to our circumstances. Sentences that happen in our mind.
* Feelings – One-word description of the vibrations in our body that are caused by our thoughts.
* Actions – Refer to our behavior, what we do or don’t do in the world. Reaction or inaction, and they are directly related to our feelings.
* Results – What we see in the world (our lives) as an effect of how we act. The result will be evidence of the original thought.
The model takes us out of unconscious thinking. It’s a way to get out of our socially programmed thought patterns and identify with a deeper level of consciousness. Implementing the model can help us identify how to safely control our feelings, break old habits, and choose thoughts and actions that serve us.
* Feelings of inadequacy or "never" being able to get it right.
* Why you might be frequently frustrated with children, parents, siblings, spouse/partner, boss, employee... basically anyone you spend enough time with where the frustration takes more mental energy than you want to expend.
* Discovering if you may be escaping or avoiding people, situations, or life by over-eating, social media, gaming, exercise, reading/consuming information, porn, even cleaning (to name some common ones).
* Receiving support when exiting your comfort zone (having a difficult conversation with someone, looking for a new job or asking for a promotion, etc.).
* Why annoyance and frustration are common feelings you experience.
* Why you're not achieving the goals you've set for yourself or feeling stagnant.
* You're a self-help junkie but have not been able to put what you've learned into application.
* Figuring out why you do what you do.
This is a very short list of examples. If you're having "brain-drain" from anything in your life, it's likely a fresh perspective can help you move onward and upward.
As a life coach, I can help you find your genius and the missing puzzle peace (play on words intended) in up-leveling your relationships and your life.
If you want a deeper, more connected relationship with yourself and others, this life coach can help you navigate that journey.
Many new to coaching find this type of exploration a different journey than confiding in a friend or a therapist/counselor. There may be questions asked that may take your mind some time to process. Questions most of us don't explore on a regular basis. My advice is to be ok with silence. As your coach, I’m not in a hurry and I’m not expecting answers within any given timeframe. Feel free to ask for clarification or for me to repeat a question if needed. I’m not looking for a “right answer” or any particular answer, and we both work with what comes up for you. Every brain will have unique answers.
Humans are the only species capable of being a "watcher," so to speak, of their own thoughts. It's important to realize that our thoughts are not really who we are and they don't define us. So having a coaching session is kind of like sitting on a comfortable couch with your life coach, watching a movie of your brain. I ask questions to help you explore your brain and what it’s offering you, then help you access the thinking part of your brain in exploring how to move forward. I don’t have answers for your particular situations; you have all the wisdom within yourself to make the right decisions for you and I help you get those answers.
* All your “ugly” (meaning all the things going on in your head)
* Honesty
* Willingness to be uncomfortable/vulnerable
A life coach is not a substitute for a therapist who diagnoses and treats acute mental disorders and diseases. Working with past trauma is better suited for a therapist as well. A life coach often works alongside a therapist/counselor in a client’s care, promoting forward momentum.
It's like the difference between a physical therapist and a personal trainer. A therapist helps you get back to baseline, while a coach helps you get to the next level. It's like going to a gym for mental/emotional health.
Therapy: emotional healing
Coaching: emotional fitness
Therapy: working through the past to get to today.
Coaching: working from today toward the future.
Therapists and counselors often have long wait lists, leaving individuals delayed from needed support. With the recognition of the importance of mental health, the life coaching industry has relieved therapists' work loads tremendously. Many people try both life coaching and therapy to see which best meets his or her needs.
Here is a good article from Psychology Today that offers additional insights:
You think you have a problem and thinking about it takes up a lot of your time and mental energy. It's likely you'd rather do something else with that time and energy. I am here to help you make it a non-problem in your mind so you can focus on the things you want to think about and do.
At the very least, it provides a committed time for mental self-care. It's making time rather than finding time to keep mentally healthy.
Taking time for your mental health is one of the most important ways to help you show up in the world the way you desire.
Each in-person session is $100. Schedule here.
Lunchbox Life Coaching courses have prices listed for each course. Peruse here.