What exactly is Life Coaching in the British sense

RE: What exactly is Life Coaching in the British sense

Rocky

in answer to your very great question I am posting an article that i published a few months ago. I hope that this will answer some of your points but feel free to come back and ask for anything that is still unclear.

Time for life coaching?

By Alex Tana

What is life coaching?
Someone once said “Of all the personal development and performance improving techniques developed in the last century, life coaching is one of the newest, the fastest growing and the most effective. Its popularity stems from its pure simplicity and great results.”

Of all the personal development and performance improving techniques developed in the last century, life coaching is one of the newest, the fastest growing and by far the most effective. Its popularity stems from its pure simplicity and great results. Everyone, without exception, has a vast potential for professional achievement, happiness and success both at a personal and professional level; a potential that is all too often unexplored and left untapped. Life coaching awakens you to the amazing possibilities that you possess within you and shows you how to use them for the benefit of yourself, your employer or staff, your family, and your community. As such life coaching is quickly becoming one of the leading tools that successful people all over the world are using to live extraordinary lives.

Unlike therapy or counselling, life coaching starts from where you are now and helps you to get to where you want to be. As such life coaching is not “backward looking” and advisory but “forward looking”, pro-active and empowering. Life coaching is not like mentoring either. It is not passing or sharing knowledge and/or specific experience that the client being mentored may or may not receive and put into practise. And certainly life coaching is not training though it is certainly linked with every aspect of personal development. Life coaching instead is enabling each and every person to be the person that he or she wants to be, professionally and personally. Life coaching supports and encourages you to releasing the potential that is already within every person and encouraging the person to use that to its best effectiveness.

Life coaching is a truly dynamic, interactive process where the coach guides you, the client, and facilitates you to move from who and what you are now supporting you to get to who and what you want to be. Life coaching helps you to find a clear purpose for your life, release the potential (skills, qualities, abilities, personality) that is within you already, grow in confidence and self-esteem, help you focus on the relevant issues before you, reach your goals and fulfil your dreams. Life coaching is the best way to be the real… you.

The problem is that far too many of us are stuck in dead end jobs, careers that seem to lead to nowhere, dry relationships and days of frustration, stress and dissatisfaction both professionally and personally. We lack the confidence to take the right steps to a new life and we suffer dwindling self-esteem and increasing sense of being “out of focus”, failure and self-criticism. We are afraid to change our life and leave our comfort zone to start walking on water. The result of all this? Your professional performance is not shining as it could be or you are using too much physical and emotional energy to achieve reasonable, mediocre results. Your personal life is not fulfilled and on balance as it could be or suffers because of the pressure from work or unresolved personal issues. And because you are possibly “out of focus” you find it difficult to move forward. So many of us do not really know who and what they are, let alone where their life is going. And even when we know that we then do not have the courage to step out and take the necessary decisions and actions.

With life coaching you will soon discover that nothing is impossible for you if you have the courage and the determination to see it happen. Being successful in

RE: What exactly is Life Coaching in the British sense

Hi Rockys[sm=wave.gif]
I am glad you asked about Life coach, as I have been looking for something to change my dull, stuck life and now thanks to you I have find it
Hi Alex[sm=wave.gif]
Reading all about life coach as made me sit up and listern, I really need to do something with me life before it past me by so thank you both so much

RE: What exactly is Life Coaching in the British sense

Hi
Sorry I click the wrong button, I didn't sign off.
Once again thank you.[sm=1syellow1.gif]
Love & Light
Angelove[sm=sandrine.gif][sm=FIFangel.gif]

RE: What exactly is Life Coaching in the British sense

Hi Alex

I'm sure your article on Life Coaching will be of great value anyone new to this forum and/or the concept of coaching, and I see Angelove has already posted to this effect, and I expect there will be many more.

However, Rocky asked some interesting questions:

This goes for me too, what exactly is Life Coaching in the British sense? As we know the American way does not always fit in with our mindset, I have been looking at several links on the subject as I do find it fascinating, but it has made me wonder what is our way forward. How do we utilise the bits that don't fit our culture but could still be important to the process, (I don't have anything specific in mind here). Any ideas?

As a coach, I would be particularly interested to discuss this further, and as I know there are HP members from the USA, their input would also be of value.

****************************************

Hi Rocky

Any chance you could let me have the links you referred to, here or PM, I don't mind.

Holistic

RE: What exactly is Life Coaching in the British sense

Message totally deleted by Holistic. My original post disappeared behind Page Cannot Be Displayed. Like a clot I had not copied it to Word as a precaution, so I retyped it all. In the meantime the original appeared.

I'm off to Anger Management now, Grrrrrrrrrrrr!!! [:@]

Holistic

RE: What exactly is Life Coaching in the British sense

Hi Alex,
that was very interesting as a concise version of what Life coaching is and has added a few bits to my understanding of it, my real question though was going from Holistic's earlier post about it coming from the US and only in the last few years gaining impetus over here, i was wondering about the cultural differences between countries in this case as we are quite different in quite a few ways to the Americans. Obviously the basis is the same otherwise it would probably be called something different here, but there are things that would be helpful to an American that may not be so to us and vice versa when it comes to methodology, here an example from where I currently work: This used to be a purely UK company but has now had a massive expansion in the states buying up lots of firms there, this year the whole thing was made into one big company and they did a launch thing both here and in the US, the problem was that the whole "motivation" thing was 100% American style and does not strike a chord with 90% of us here and from what I have read Life coaching contains quite a bit of motivation work. Also I lived in Germany for 19 years and I can say that things there would be a bit different aswell. So coming back to Holistics post that sparked my query, succesful in the US ......., how do we define it in the British sense? Not so much what is it.
I hope you see what I mean.
By the way I have 4 kids that's where I learned pushy questions:D:D

Rocky.

RE: What exactly is Life Coaching in the British sense

Angelove

well sitting up is the first step towards what might be a new and better life. Now, that you are sitting, what next? Where do you want to go from here? What would you like to change? Feel free to PM or email me.

Take care,

RE: What exactly is Life Coaching in the British sense

Rocky

just taken from the post above from Holistic. You said...

...what exactly is Life Coaching in the British sense? As we know the American way does not always fit in with our mindset...

Well yes British and American life coaching are somewhat different though the basic methodology and most of the basic principles are the same. But over the years we have certainly "anglicised" life coaching to fit our Britishness.

Let me give you some examples. Most American life coaching tends to be quite directive, prescrptive and so fairly close to mentoring. In contrast most British coaching is non prescriptive and far more client based.

An other difference is the fact that in the UK many coaches have blended more or less NLP with life coaching, something which is still relatively "not done" in the Usa.

Another difference is that many of the values and beliefs are different among the two cultures and this affects the way that coaching is different in both the way it is presented in the market place and in the procedures followed.

Another big difference is that life coaching in the Usa has found its right place within the filed of Personal development (not training!) and it is a very well accepted discipline. In the Uk there is a lot of ignorance about life coaching and it is very often considered at best as a therapy and at worst (especially in the corporate world) something fluffy and useless.

And there are several other differences.

How do we utilise the bits that don't fit our culture but could still be important to the process, (I don't have anything specific in mind here). Any ideas?

Good point Rocky. As I have hopefully answered above the methodologies are very similar and in a sense the selection that you suggest has already started and I expect will continue over time.

RE: What exactly is Life Coaching in the British sense

Rocky

replying to your latest posting.

Uhm very intersting comment though.... many people would say that we are actually becoming more and more similar to American. Oh sure I jknow that we are different in many ways but think of the many American things we do/use/watch/listen to and so on. But this will lead us off tangent.

The fact is that though I understand your point of view there certain things where "cultural differences" play a certain role but that does not change the basics of it. So it is with life coaching but... read my previous posting. It is very intersting though that the best know and the most read coaches in this country are.... American!