What is life coaching, anyway?

I’m the kind of person that ends up making friends with people no matter where I go.

The grocery store, the fitting room, the elevator, you name it. If I’m there, people talk to me.

Maybe I have that kind of face.

Anyway, I had one of these spontaneous conversations the other day, and it went something like this:

Nice lady in the paint store: “It’s so hard to choose a color, isn’t it?”

Me: “It’s impossible! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been here in the last two weeks!”

Lady: “Yeah, you know, I used to have a business idea related to that. It’s been so long since I’ve thought about it. . .”

She tells me a little about her idea, her life, what she’s doing at the paint store.

“So, what do you do?” she asks.

“I’m a life and career coach. I help people rediscover their passions and purpose so they can have more fun and do what they care about.”

I usually get one of two responses when I talk about what I do.

One is an enthusiastic interest. (“Wow, that must be so amazing!”)

The other is confusion. “What is life coaching, anyway?!”

Lots of people still haven’t heard of life coaching, or they think of it as on the fringe, or just plain weird.

But once you know more about it, it’s not so weird after all.

A life coach is like a cross between a therapist and a personal trainer.

Neither thing is weird or out there.

Just imagine how much more effective you could be with your life goals if you enlist the help of someone who understands the stuff that gets in your way, who would push you to your maximum potential, and who would help you to make changes in a way that works for you, so that your progress is real and lasting.

A good coach will ask great questions to help you really think and and make decisions that feel right.

A good coach will support you and cheer you on, but never gloss things over.

A good coach will see things about your life that are hard to see from your vantage point.

And a good coach will help you decide where to start, keep you motivated, and help you not get overwhelmed.

I’ve worked as a therapist, and for some issues, people and circumstances there is just no contest.

If therapy is what is needed, coaching won’t cut it.

But there are also a lot of people in therapy who might really actually benefit from coaching instead.

These people are well, but they want something better in life. They want to make changes and improvements going forward. The past of course impacts them, but their work now is not so much about understanding and working through the past, it’s about moving forward.

The focus of coaching is taking you (with all your history and baggage) from where you are now to where you want to be.

So, now that you know exactly what coaching is, it seems pretty awesome, right?

Are you saying, “Geez, I wish I had one of those?”

Go ahead and connect with me at jessica@wishingwellcoach.com