Life coaching is fast becoming one of the leading instruments that successful individuals use to live amazing lives. Many happy clients are promoting the use of  life coaching and the help of life coaches for helping them align their thoughts, words, and actions, accordingly.

But just what is life coaching?

Life Coaching defined

Life coaching can be defined as a professional relationship between a life coach and his/her client. The life coach aims to work with his/her client in identifying what the individual wants personally and professionally. The life coach also supports the client in achieving a life that the person really wants and loves. This can only be accomplished, of course, if the client takes responsibility for his/her actions.

Through coaching, clients can focus on their skills and behavior needed to successfully create personally relevant results. Life coaching may also include physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual areas of the client’s life.

Tracing its roots to executive coaching, which itself drew on strategies developed in leadership training and management consulting, life coaching also draws from a wide variety of disciplines, such mentoring, psychology, career counseling, and many other types of counseling.

Life Coaching Users

Life coaching is being used by an increasing number of psychologists and various practitioners to help clients with changes in their professional, as well as personal lives. As of today, no standards to regulate the life coaching profession exists, and so no formal training is needed to pursue a life coaching career or profession in most states.

Life coaching applies mentoring, goal-setting, behavior modeling, behavior modification, values assessment, and other strategies in helping clients. Coaches are to be set apart from counselors, whichever field of counseling they may belong to.

Life Coach Specializations

Coaches tend to concentrate in one or more of many areas: career coaching, personal coaching, transition coaching, executive coaching, small business, corporate coaching, and organizational coaching. As the World Wide Web has expanded, life coaching has greatly widened its presence online. Numerous life coaching agencies now offer coaching online, as well as coaching via telephone.

Difference from Therapy and Consulting

Coaching is definitely not therapy, which usually goes deep on various issues that deal with the past. It’s also not consulting, which normally results in giving the client the answers he/she needs. Coaching is more action-oriented and concentrates for the most part on the present and future. The life coach should enable the client to determine his/her own answers in the course of the coaching partnership or relationship.

Persons who Typically Works with a Coach

Business owners, entrepreneurs, professionals, and people undergoing changes are just some of the people who usually work with a coach. Regardless of their professional enterprise or place in life, many clients share some characteristics: all are successful, ingenious, and smart individuals who want to get more out of their lives. Having a personal coach is just like having a personal trainer for on’s life!

Life Coaching Attractions

Self-employment has its rewards in any area of business. The comfort of being able to choose the time one works, the workplace, and the charge for on’s service are good motivations for anybody considering this career.

In addition to that, a coach can always decide how many clients he/she wants to work with, which may be one client, or 20.

The flexibility of this vocation, along with the gratifying aspects of the job, is expected to ensure that life coaching and the number of practicing coaches will grow considerably in the years to come.