Answering 3 Big Questions About Life Coaching

As a Life Coach, especially a Christian Life Coach, I get a lot of questions about what exactly a life coach is and does, and what makes a Christian one different from any others. Here are the answers to three of the most common questions:

 

1. What is life coaching?

If we’re honest with ourselves, we could all improve an area or two in our lives. But why don’t we do anything about it? Most people know what they should do, but they don’t do what they know. But if you keep doing what you’ve always done you’ll keep getting what you’ve always been getting. Something has to change.

 

Life coaching involves a coach (like me) coming alongside you as a catalyst for the transformation you desire.  My coaching focuses first on clearly identifying your calling, that is, discovering (or rediscovering) and understanding who you are. Next, I help you identify and clarify what you want most—your goals and vision.  Finally, I help you to create and develop strategies for achieving your goals.

 

When a sports coach helps motivate, discipline, and train her players for successful performance and perseverance to the finale of the game, you can see the results on the playing field.  A life coach helps people successfully navigate the race of life, to live it well and plan to finish it well. YOU have to put in the work, but the end goal of a coach is to help you identify and achieve your goals faster and more effectively than if you did it yourself.

 

Life coaching helps a person see obstacles as opportunities, adjusting self-defeating thought patterns, and replace them with positive beliefs.  Life coaching is focused on forward movement—after envisioning the life you want, it involves planning the life you desire and tailoring the work you’re doing for income to that life.

 

2. How is life coaching different from counseling?

First let me say that both have important roles to play. Both are extremely valuable parts of the transformation process.  If counseling is needed first, it may be recommended after our pre-coaching consultation.

 

Counseling is empathic listening, focusing on past events, and gaining an understanding of why client you are where you are today. Counselors search for the roots of problems, helping release negative, damaging thoughts and emotions, and moving a person from unhealthy state of being to a healthy one. It helps you to process emotions and thoughts and see patterns that are preventing you from moving forward.

 

Coaching is active listening, focusing on where you want to be. Coaches may still look at understanding the past, but the clear emphasis is on where an individual is going.  The client is the initiator of the direction.  Coaching is more of a partnership with the client in a process that assists you in maximizing skills, talents, and gifts already there, but perhaps numbed by the realities of life.  Coaches listen, observe, and shape the process for the individual.

Coaches ask, “Where are you now? Where do you want to be? How are you going to get there?”

 

3. What makes ”Christian Life Coaching” different?

There are many differences but the primary one is the underlying foundation. Secular coaching is humanistic and relies on the client’s self-imposed goals. It’s all about what’s in you and doing something for yourself, to make you happy. Christian coaching is Christ-centered. Within Christian coaching, there is a three-way relationship between client, coach and Holy Spirit. Secular coaching involves a two-way relationship between coach and client.

  

As done through Leaving Conformity Coaching, Christian Life Coaching is rooted and grounded in Scripture (I spent almost 9 hours doing word studies just to make sure the name didn’t violate the context of the verses I am using), and I seek to help you find your calling, set goals, etc. for the purpose of being a faithful steward of the gifts God has given you, glorifying Him, and serving others. Happiness is a by-product of the process, but it is not our purpose.

 

Christian coaching is a process that empowers you to fully live out God’s calling in your personal life and in your job. It’s learning new ways to learn, listening to your heart and the Holy Spirit, and taking action to reshape your life around that learning and leading.

 

Question: What questions do you have for me? Tell me in the comments below, or on our Facebook page and I’ll do my best to answer them!