Since life coaching and coaching is no small part of my work here and the vision I have to transform the city, it only makes sense to clarify what it is. I barely understood the concept before I got trained in 2006. The profession is really no older than the 1990’s in fact, so don’t feel bad if you don’t really get it. Here you go:

What exactly is life coaching? In short, it’s a one-on-one relationship where a coach helps you take the actions you want to take to reach a goal. Coaches are personal change experts who help others fulfill their destiny. Professionally trained in a unique set of leadership skills, coaches help others identify important goals and priorities, strategize about how to reach them, and overcome obstacles that crop up along the way.

What is Coaching Like?
Coaching appointments begin with a chance for you to report on your progress, and end with a clear set of action steps you choose to take in the week ahead. But what is that essential spark between you and your coach that makes the relationship so transformational? Below are four facets of the power of coaching:

Coaching is a Transformational Conversation.
The biggest surprise for first-time clients is realizing that the coach isn’t there to give advice. Instead, powerful, incisive coaching questions stimulate you to examine the things in life that matter most from new angles. A coaching conversation can transform the way you look at life.

Coaching is a Transparent Relationship.
A coach is a friend and confidant, your greatest supporter, someone who knows you well enough to recognize your greatness and then challenge you to rise to it. A transparent relationship with a coach frees you to go to places you’ve never gone before.

Coaching is a Support System for Change.
With support, encouragement and accountability from someone who believes in us, we can do far more than we’d ever accomplish alone. A coach helps you stay on track, overcome obstacles and convert your want-to into concrete steps that get in your date book and get done.

Coaching is Continuous Leadership Development.
Coaches don’t give solutions: they help you solve your own problems. Coaching is helping you learn instead of telling you what to do. By leveraging every situation to build your capacity as a leader and a person, coaching prepares you to conquer much bigger challenges in the future.

What will we Work On?
The answer is, “Just about anything!” Performance coaching does just what its name says: it helps you increase your performance. Or you can work at discovering your destiny, organizing your life, getting into an exercise program, slowing down, turning a dream into reality…you only need to answer the question, “What do I want to do different?”

You might be wondering, “What qualifies a coach to help me in so many different areas?” Remember, a coach is not an expert in a certain field who gives you advice (that’s consulting). And a coach is not someone more senior than you who is showing you the ropes (that’s mentoring). Coaches are change experts who help you find the solution that works for your unique situation.

So if you want more from life—more growth, greater purpose, maximum performance-a personal coach might be your key to getting there.

Life Purpose Coaching

Here the aim is to find out how God has built His dreams in you and get greater clarity than you have ever had on your life direction. Americans tend to think about these things a lot, but Russians were trained by the communists to actively avoid dreams and being or thinking differently than the crowd! So when we do life purpose coaching with Russians, it’s a real eye-opener!

Want more Information about Coaching?

Click here to read about Christian coaching and the organization that trained me.

Here is a brief history of Christian coaching: