Life Coaching for Beginners - In my earliest post, I have talked about life coaching. Now in this subsequent post of mine, I will finally talk about and give you the answer to what is life coaching. Many people may have heard of other similar terms, such as managing, training, mentoring or maybe even counselling. But do you know that these terms do not really give you the same meaning as coaching? Let me explain these terms as well as the term coaching first. There are many different forms of coaching but the one that my blog focuses on would be on life coaching. So anyways let us get back to the original question.
So what is managing, training, mentoring and counselling? Let us start with the easiest – counselling. Well when people encounter problems in their lives, or in their relationships like family or marriage, they go to a marriage or family counsellor who would talk to them, assess the situation and see what is wrong. These counselling sessions serve to improve communication between two or more individuals who are facing problems. While coaching is more about improving and bettering oneself, part of coaching is also about improving one’s relationship or marriage. However I would feel that counselling is more to solve an issue or problem, whereas coaching is more for improving oneself overall.
Then there is the case about managing. You should know what are managers right? Most of the time they are your bosses and the people who are in charge. Hence managers sort of direct you around and ensure that you are doing the right thing at work. So if you need someone to manage you, you probably are your own businessman that’s why you are thinking of getting a manager! Well there certainly is not about coaching because managing is simply about making sure that people know what to do and what they should do.
What about training? You have heard soldiers training for the war or sportsmen training for a competition. Trainers teach these people skills on how to achieve a certain objective. In a way they are like teachers who teach people what to do what they do not know how to do and also how they can improve in the process. Some teachers or trainers are also known as coaches, but these coaches usually train the individual physically and not mentally.
Lastly we talk about mentoring. As mentioned for training which is more physical in nature, mentoring is the mental side of training. Mentoring would be quite close to coaching but is more of guiding someone along and showing them how to do something. A mentor is like a guide who would teach you how to start a business, how to emulate himself such that the mentee is able to achieve what he wants to achieve. I do feel that coaching has some mentoring elements in it.
So this brings us to the big question, what is coaching? Well I will be talking about that in my next post, as I just realised that this post is starting to get a bit long! Before I end, as always, I am going to introduce a good book on life coaching training. Maybe once you get this book you do not even need to find a life coach anymore. Maybe you may even up up taking up some life coach jobs. This book is titled Becoming a Professional Life Coach: Lessons from the Institute of Life Coach Training. It will not only teach you lessons on becoming a life coach but at the end you may end up with some life coaching certification too!
You would be happy to know that this book has gotten 27 reviews, of which 26 were 5 stars and 1 was 4 stars at the time of this post. If you are looking for a book on how to be a professional life coach, then this is really it! The number of people seeking help and who are in need of personal and professional coaching will only increase in the future and if you are a professional life coach, this would only mean that you are positioned to be in a powerful career. Whatever the type of coaching you might seek, you would realise that life coaching is the basic operating system and the foundation required for a good coach.
In this book, the author Pat Williams, who has been a leader in the life coaching movement and a pioneer of the coaching profession and who has founded the Institute for Life Coach Training, an ICF Accredited Coach Training Program, has co-authored this essential book with Diane S. Menendez, Ph.D. who is a master certified coach and has coached leaders, teams, and organizations for over 25 years. This book comes from the wisdom of years of collective experience that both authors have gone through and is designed with the curriculum for the Institute for Life Coach Training in mind. This curriculum has trained therapists, psychologists and not forgetting life coaches around the world and presents the essential elements of a life coach training program in a content-rich form.
Buy this book Becoming a Professional Life Coach: Lessons from the Institute of Life Coach Training
if you intend to become a life coaching professional and you will never regret it. Till my next article where I will finall explain what is life coaching!
if you intend to become a life coaching professional and you will never regret it. Till my next article where I will finall explain what is life coaching!
