AD | I was offered a complimentary life coaching session by the absolutely wonderful Andrea Hunt and will be linking to her site throughout this post. There was no obligation for me to post about that session at all and all the opinions in this post are my own.
If you’ve been curious about life coaching but are not sure whether or not to book a session, I’m hoping this post will help you decide. In this post, we’ll be going back to basics and talking about the principles of life coaching, how it’s different to therapy and when exactly in life you should get one. If that sounds good to you, keep reading.
What is a life coach?
A life coach is a qualified person who coaches you through a range of personal and professional issues through a variety of techniques.
Life coaches support their clients and help them discover their strengths, build their confidence, overcome obstacles and realise their goals. A life coach won’t tell you what to do, instead they are trained to foster an environment that allows you to figure that out for yourself.
Like in person-centred therapy, the principle here is that you are already equipped with everything you need to be able to make the right decision for you. And, with the right circumstances and some guidance, you will confidently choose the next step to take.
What is the difference between a life coach and a therapist?
Like therapists, life coaches employ a huge range of techniques to support their clients in building their confidence and working through issues. But a life coach is not a therapist and, in general, the way they work is quite differently.
While a life coach might help guide a client through decision making, personal growth, building self esteem, self kindness and compassion and a whole myriad of other issues, a good life coach will also recognise when a therapist would be more appropriate for their client. Some issues that should be kept to therapy include working through childhood issues, processing traumatic memories or events, addiction, self harm and mental illness.
Unlike therapists, life coaches are not regulated, which means that it’s especially important you make sure that you are working with a life coach who is trained and experienced enough to be able to make a difference to you.
Read more about Andrea Hunt, her experience and her qualifications.
When should you get a life coach?
The best time to consider getting a life coach (or ‘mentor’) is when you are already actively working on self improvement. If you have already worked through some issues in therapy and/or you feel you have already established a baseline of self awareness and are in tune with your own mental health, then you might be ready for life coaching.
Here’s why self awareness should be the first step on any personal growth journey.
A life coach might be able to help you with the following things:
- Being kinder and more compassionate to yourself
- Taking steps to reduce anxiety, depression or self loathing
- Becoming more assertive, confident and outgoing
- Self love
- Setting and realising professional goals
- Understanding and unlearning bad habits
- Creating good habits
- Building a more peaceful and fulfilling life
- Overcoming obstacles to productivity
- Making big life decisions about relationships, relocation or career moves
- Your sense of self and identity
- Rebuilding after a breakup
- Managing your relationships
So, should you book a life coaching session?
Having had a session with Andrea, I can see how beneficial life coaching could be in the right circumstances and I’d definitely encourage others to give it a go. I had 20 sessions of person-centred therapy last year (you can read about that here) and so I felt I had a good foundation and appropriate amount of self analysis to be able to build on for life coaching. If that sounds like you, then I say go for it.
I went into my session with a very specific goal in mind. I wanted to figure out why I didn’t feel able to share my art with the world with the confidence I wanted to have. I desperately needed to stop self sabotaging and start putting myself out there and I really felt like the 1 hour session I had helped a ton. You can read about my life coaching session with Andrea here.
If you think life coaching sounds right for you, I’d urge you to book a free consultation with Andrea. She’s kind, patient, compassionate and insightful. I felt like she was a fantastic fit for me and hope that you’ll feel the same way.
Click here to follow Andrea on Twitter if you’d like to keep up with the things she shares. Good luck!
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