What Is A Life Coach? What do they do? Why does one need a life coach? How does life coaching help in real life? so many questions, but don’t know their answers as this blog is here to clear all of your doubts about life coaching. How good it would be if you have a person who you could talk to about all the things you are facing may it be in your personal or professional life & they would guide you to a path of progress and improvement.
You may think is it really possible, that life coaching can help you live life at its full potential and figure out what you really want to do or how you can deal with challenges that come in your way. Then yes, many people seek guidance from life coaches to bring improvement in their lives and bring clarity about various things in life.
What is a life coach and why you should prefer it? Well, the life coaching industry in today’s world is a growing field, people also opt for it after their studies and train for it to become professional life coaches. So there is a lot of scope in the field, also there are many types of life coaches who are experts in different niches. For eg: If you have any career-related things to discuss and need guidance, so you can go to a coach who gives career coaching.
What is a Life Coach & How Is It Different From A Therapist?
Many people often confuse a life coach with a therapist, but both of them are two different words. So let us get to know what is the major difference between both of them. A therapist is someone who helps clients to deal with their mental health issues and try to resolve whatever they are facing it can be their difficult feelings, relationship issues, beliefs, behaviors, personal problems, problematic habits, and so on. The process of therapy is to get relief or to come out of a bad phase you are facing, it is done by talking to a mental health professional who is trained to solve such problems.
Whereas a life coach is someone who is a trained professional who helps you build a meaningful life. They are not someone who tells you what to do, but they guide you on how to deal with things, how to bring a change in your life, or how to improve your relationships with others.
The talking therapy with the life coach will help you in bringing clarity about your goals, overcome the obstacles that come in your way, and provide you with the support & guidance you need to live a progressive life. They provide you with solutions and strategies depending on your the problem you face and skills. But remember that they can’t treat your mental health issues only therapists and mental health professionals can.
Now that the difference between both of the terms is clear, let’s just move on to what type of life coaches there are, and what they can help you with. Also, we will be talking about the benefits and drawbacks of life coaching and solve all your doubts about what is a life coach and which life coach will help you solve what challenges ,so without any further due let’s dive into the topic.
Types Of Life Coaches
1. Career Coaching
If you are someone who is planning to have a career change, thinking of retirement, or in general facing any issues in your career. You can have a one-to-one coaching session with the career coach. They are professionals with good knowledge about different careers and opportunities it has to offer.
They help students and clients to figure out what they really want to pursue in life, what career path they want to go on, and what opportunities are available for that particular field. Also, you can seek advice from them if you are stuck in making a certain decision about your career.
They also help their clients to determine what their career goals are by knowing their skills and strengths. Depending on your interests and skillset they also let you know about what kind of opportunities are available in the field you want to work.
They also carry out assessments based on personality and skills to know more about their clients & in which field their interest lies. They can also guide you on how to write resumes, Cvs, and cover letters for jobs and provide feedback if needed.
They can also help you in finding the right colleges that match your interests & career choice and also will guide you if you want to study abroad. Also provides information about various scholarships, student loans, fully funded opportunities and so on that you can avail of such benefits to fund your education.
2. Business Coaches
As the name suggests, a business coach is someone who mentors and guides business owners about their businesses. They are business professionals with excellent knowledge about how businesses work and an understanding of human psychology.
If you are someone who has a difficulty in setting your company’s vision, don’t know how to go about a new business, or require any kind of suggestions about your business then you can approach a business coach to help you out.
They work with small business owners and guide them about their visions, and business strategies, and also if they are stuck with any kind of decision, they provide them with personalized advice. Whereas in large organizations they work and mentor their managers and employees on how they can maximize their potential to achieve organizational goals and increase productivity.
They analyze different strategies which lead to business success or failure and provide some suggestions for business growth as well. They communicate to the owners about the strengths and weaknesses of the business, along with monitoring the overall growth of the company so that they can provide them ways through which they can expand and improve business.
3. Family & Relationship Coaching
If there is any kind of communication problem in a family or couple they help to solve it, by facilitating a conversation. They take family coaching sessions to help the individuals sort out issues within them. They try to talk about their problems and issues they are facing, which is leading to communication difficulties between them and give out ways to solve the issues.
They help people in having improved relationships with their family or loved ones. Also, they help in developing mutual understanding and respect for one another, by keeping in mind the nature, differences, and behaviour of the people in the family. They help in initiating a conversation between couples and family and find a middle ground for them to resolve their conflicts.
They also guide people who are facing marriage or divorce problems, they give them the space to talk about the things that are affecting them and causing issues within their relationship. It helps people improve communication skills and have better relationships with their partners.
4. Mental Health Coach
A busy life and a lot of pressure can be a reason for your stress because of which sometimes we become emotionally drained too. To deal with these issues, mental health coaching sessions help in providing you with ways to manage stress and be more focused.
They teach you ways how you can overcome such issues and live a balanced life. They help you in identifying your fears and setting personal goals, they provide you with effective techniques to handle challenges in a better manner.
But if someone has serious mental health conditions then you should talk to a therapist, to get proper mental health treatment. Now you may be wondering why not a mental coach, the answer to this is that the life coaches in any niche focus more on the present and future and give you strategies based on behaviour.
Whereas a therapist is mental health professional who is more focused on your past and present and is concerned with emotional healing and cognition.
A mental health coach helps you recognize problematic behaviours and give ways to unlearn those so that to live a relaxed and more focused life. Many sports players approach a mental health coach to stay calm and attentive while matches or under pressure.
5. Financial Coach
As the name suggests, a financial coach is someone who helps you in managing your money better and how you can spend it wisely. They analyze your financial conditions through your spending habits, tax returns, accounts, and so on. They provide you with strategies that you can use to overcome if you are facing any kind of financial issues.
They not only help you develop healthy financial habits but guide you on how you can manage money in day-to-day life and can save even for your future goals. One can always approach a financial coach if they think they have spending issues or they are not able to manage money properly or have savings.
They are professionals with a deep knowledge of finance, they guide you on how you can take control of your own finances and have a stable financial life. They also identify your financial problems, and how you can tackle them.
People often confuse a financial coach with a financial advisor, the difference between both of them is a financial coach is someone who gives you the necessary information about finance and how you can improve it, even if you are someone who is a beginner with fewer assets they help you get on the right track with the finances. Whereas a financial advisor helps people in advising about wealth building and how they can manage their investments for the long term.
6. Health & Wellness Coach
This type of coach’s job is to provide its clients with wellness techniques that can help them in bringing a healthy change in their lifestyles & habits as well as to work on self-improvement.
They help you in removing the negative patterns that affect your overall life and behaviour. They look after your overall well-being and advice you about what changes you can bring to your eating habits, sleeping patterns, lifestyle, life choices, and so on so that you have a healthy life.
They take one-to-one coaching sessions with their clients, to understand more about their lifestyle, health, and habits. Also to identify what problems they are facing and give them a personalized plan which they can follow to solve them and reach their goals.
They help clients in creating their own goals about their wellness and health and support them throughout to reach the goal. They also monitor the client’s success in achieving their health and fitness goals, also they suggest new ways to achieve them too.
They provide tips and guidance for issues like overeating, gaining or losing weight, nutrition, fitness problems, and so on. They give you a personalized plan depending upon your needs and issues, in order to bring a change in your lifestyle and improve your overall condition.
Advantages Of Life Coaching:
- Self-confidence- It helps people in being confident and enhances self-esteem by addressing the issues and taking necessary steps to build confidence.
- To be content- Life cannot be always happier, but we can always try to make it better and feel good about ourselves and our life. For that, it’s important to be happy on the inside and be content with the life you are living, and seek happiness in little things. Life coaching helps you in making your life even more meaningful and opens you to a new perspective on life.
- Clarity – When you know what you want, what are your goals, and how you going about your life, it brings clarity to your life and helps you in making good decisions. It helps you to overcome any obstacles that come along the path and reach the desired goal.
- Starts building better relationships with others- When you learn how to communicate effectively with others, understand them, accept each other’s differences and listen, it helps to create a good bond with others.
- Unlearn bad habits- A life coach recommends you some strategies or tips which help you in eliminating the bad habits or behaviours from your life. You learn about what those habits are and work on them, to become a better version of yourself.
- Get to know your strengths and weakness better- You learn about your strong points and weak points both, so you can work on your weaknesses to improve them and transform them into your strengths. Also analyzing all this helps to understand yourself better.
- Helps in achieving goals- To set your goals and develop the necessary steps to achieve them, happens only when you have clarity about your dreams and goals. To get you where you want to be and to define what your goals are, life coaching can help you with it.
- To be open-minded- We often see things from our perspective and the beliefs and values that we hold, but having a life coach helps you see things from a different perspective. It opens your mind to new things and perspectives, which also helps you in trying things differently and unlocks your potential to grab different opportunities.
Disadvantages Of Life Coaching
- Expensive- To hire a good life coach who guides you in the right direction is important and to hire one can be a little expensive and they charge their costs according to hours i.e anywhere between 70$ – 200$ per hour.
- If you are not focused to achieve a goal- Hiring a life coach just for the sake is of no use if you are not really committed to your goal or bettering your life. It would be a waste of time and energy for both parties.
- A fake life coach- As no license is required to be a life coach, anyone can be one & can easily fool you just for money. Some real-life coaches may have some certifications for showing their expertise. So it’s always better to check the ones you are working with if they are real-life coaches or just claim that they are one.
- Trust issues: When you hire a life coach you don’t exactly know what their true intentions are and whether they can be trusted or not.
- Coaches are not magicians, that whatever they say will come true and your life will be improved, it can happen that sometimes their ways won’t work out for you as planned.
Final Note
Life coaching can really be effective for those who are really committed to achieving their goals, you can’t expect a life coach to help you in reaching your goals because it’s on you to take the necessary actions and stay committed to achieving those. A life coach can only guide you, mentor you and show you the ways you can make things work, but until you don’t make any effort to be better all these would be of no use.
Some life coaches who are great at what they do actually bring out the best in people and turned their lives around by helping them meet their goals not only professional ones but personal ones too. That’s why it’s really important to have a good life coach in your life, who empowers you to do better.
With this we come to an end of this blog about life coaching, I hope you got to learn something about life coaching as a field and its different niches along with its positives and negatives.