This blog post has been authored by Stand Out Online Member Heidi Puppo, A Beautiful New Life
What is a Life Coach?
A Life Coach is someone who is going to help you figure out what it is you want exactly and how you can achieve your goals. They assist you in drawing out the map of what your ideal life looks like while helping to plant the seeds of positivity at each milestone along the way. Think of life coaching as a positive reinforcement or a cheerleader on the sidelines of your big game. They listen to your full story, without direct judgement, help you define your story (both past and present), work with you to heal through your roadblocks along the way and explore any resistance that may come up. Also known as Life Strategists, they help you with a plan to move forward and achieve your goals, no matter how large or small they may seem to you. A life coach gives you an outsider perspective on each facet of your life, walking you through the troubles you’ve faced throughout your journey and teaching you how to grow from each experience allowing you to live a life full of greater prosperity and fulfillment.
Understanding the Role of a Life Coach for Women in Your Life
Not only does it take a village to raise a child, it takes a village to create a thriving community of positive people in our lives. We all need help sometimes, right? It’s an essential piece of our life story and a facet in everyone’s world. This is especially true when we are going through a difficult experience such as a hard divorce or the throes of a toxic relationship. Our friends and family are there for us, but don’t seem to understand the complexity of what we are going through most times. Can you relate? Often we find ourselves trying to solve and muster all on our own, desperately trying to navigate this thing called life. We find ourselves struggling to maintain a level of peace in our lives, financially, emotionally, mentally and physically. We question how the next bill will be paid, who can bring the kids to and from school while we are working, stress over the added housework, and overall maintenance of the life we created, the life we love. Difficult times don’t have to be the final destination of your journey. Difficult times lead to glorious and prosperous opportunities if you allow the right people to be there for you.
How is a Life Coach different from a Therapist?
Although life coaches are classified under the umbrella of wellness professionals, there are a few major differences between a therapist and a life coach. Life coaches do not provide a medical diagnosis. A life coach is part of the team that helps and supports a therapist in assisting a client to achieve an overall well-balanced life through positive self-care techniques and analysis of each individual’s gifts and skills. A therapist has extensive training and is licensed to diagnose disorders and treat clients for specific disorders or conditions. It is up to the client to be able to do due diligence in finding a life coach that has had extensive training, knowledge and experience to work with the client as training methods and length of training may vary by coach. Life coaches are trained as a whole and generally seek out a particular field of practice within the life coaching field. Just like a sports coach, there are many different types of life coaches and each one has their own level of passion and understanding in a particular area of life coaching. For me, it was working with women going through specific life traumas. I had taken my own experiences and combined it with extensive education to help me support and guide women going through traumatic divorces and toxic relationships.
Life Coaches handle the now
Life coaches move you forward. While a therapist may help you uncover what’s going in your past to manage the present, a life coach is there to look at what’s going on with your present and help you create a future that you desire. A life coach helps you lay out the actionable steps it will take for you to move forward, while a therapist helps you to go within to uncover the blocks that may have been holding you back. A life coach session provides structure with open-ended questions to get, you,the client, to bring out your own inner guidance. Within life coaching, there’s generally homework and accountability for the purpose of moving forward with particular goals and milestones in mind. Life coaching is about moving past your negative experiences and propelling into a life filled with positivity and possibilities.
So, which do I choose?
Actually, it’s fine to see both and may be recommended to do so based on your unique life experiences and goals. Combining both will allow you to build upon the healing that can take place when navigating your life journey, both past and present. A life coach is going to push you forward and keep the momentum going to reach a better future. It is important to be aware that a life coach will not address clinical issues. Those issues should be handled by a medical professional. Life coaches understand their boundaries and scope of practice and will refer you to a therapist if clinical work is needed and should you decide to first start out on the life coach route in your own healing journey.
Do Life Coaches provide specific life advice?
It’s a common misconception that a life coach provides specific life advice. A life coach is there to help facilitate your own process of connecting to your own inner wisdom, coming up and formulating the ideas, actions and steps from a place of connection. In essence, a life coach is an unbiased brainstorming partner there to assist you through whatever pain and healing you need. Life coaching is a very personal and unique process that is solely based on your own thoughts, core values, beliefs and boundaries. Through your stance, a life coach assists you in coming up with an action plan and set of goals based on what truly resonates with your full authentic self and potential for growth. You are at the helm of making the changes you see fit in your life and life coaches help you navigate the course ahead.