Some life challenges go beyond our coping abilities, hindering our personal development and causing various mental health concerns. When this happens, you may need professional support to overcome obstacles and get your life back on track. However, you may feel uncertain whether to find a therapist or hire a life coach.
Here are some key facts about life coaching to help you decide whether hiring a certified life coach could be helpful for you.
What Life Coaches Do?
Whether you need self-care guidance, feel insecure about making important decisions, need support to manage work-related stress, or have relationship issues, finding a qualified life coach can be the right choice.
Life coaching may involve short-term or long-term strategies to help you:
- Answer some important questions about your life
- Make realistic plans for the future
- Visualize and reach your goals
- Improve relationships
- Make better decisions
- Raise resilience
- Stop unhelpful habits
- Cope with life transitions
- Encourage you to grow and develop
A skilled coach can help you develop a growth mindset, become your guide, and teach you practical strategies to improve your life.
How to Find a Qualified Life Coach
Whether you need help balancing work and life, coping with stress, or improving self-care, a good life coach will not promise overnight success. A coaching professional can help you understand that life changes require effort and time, while their job is to monitor your progress, provide regular feedback, and guide you.
They will challenge you to get out of your comfort zone and support you when you feel insecure and discouraged.
Here are a few tips to help you choose a qualified life coach who will match your needs.
- Consider which aspects of your life and well-being you want to change or improve.
Depending on your needs, you can hire a life coach who specializes in one of the following areas:
- Relationships
- Health and wellness
- Mindfulness/Meditation
- Life Transitions
- Career and business
- General life coaching
- Imposter Syndrome
Most people hire life coaches because they want to grow and improve. Make sure to find a coach who understands your strengths and flaws so that they can steer your personal growth in the right direction. Life coaching should boost your confidence and help you create a plan of what you want to achieve.
- Find a coach whose style matches your needs and personality.
Each life coach works within their own orientation, training, and personal traits. Therefore, coaching strategies may vary from one life coach to another. So, make yourself familiar with your potential life coach’s philosophy their coaching style, and then decide whether their approach matches your needs.
How a Life Coach Differs from a Psychotherapist?
Understanding the differences between a certified life coach and a therapist can help you decide where to seek support.
Psychotherapists work with clients who struggle with mental health disorders or feel emotionally unwell. They determine and diagnose mental illnesses so their clients can receive clinical treatment. If you want to work on past traumas or unresolved issues, you may want to consider psychotherapy.
While psychotherapists analyze the past, focusing on a client’s earlier experiences, life coaches are future-oriented, helping their clients achieve goals, develop strategies for progress, and support personal development and self-improvement. Most coaching clients might be a bit stuck or simply want to make a big change in their lives and want the support of a coach to do so.
Online Coaching
Life coaching doesn’t have to happen face-to-face to be effective. Many people decide to work with life coaches online, finding virtual coaching beneficial in many ways.
Coaching online allows you to do coaching sessions when you find it the most convenient – you can work on yourself from the comfort of your home or while traveling for work or leisure.
Hiring a life coach means investing in your well-being. However, if you struggle with anxiety, depression, or other severe mental health concerns, speak to your health care provider. Coaching is never a substitute for mental health care. While your life coach can advise on health-related topics, only trained medical professionals can diagnose psychological and medical conditions.
Your life coach can be a great support in achieving your goals, making important decisions, and developing a positive mindset.
