Life Coaching
We’ve heard the buzzwords, but what is it really all about? Annie Harper sets out to de-mystify this new, trendy form of self-improvement and find out if it works.
Today more than ever we have so many pressures that affect every aspect of our lives, from achieving the body beautiful, creating the ‘perfect’ lifestyle, the successful career, gaining financial security - we get hit on all levels. There are many people who go through the motions on a daily basis. Maybe to the outsider looking on, they have the ‘perfect’ job and the ‘perfect’ home. Materially they have everything, yet internally they feel completely hollow and unfulfilled. For some, it’s because they need to identify the areas of their life they need to change or get into balance - it could be personal issues, working too hard with no social life, or the lack of a personal relationship. There are so many situations where Life Coaching could really help. The reasons don’t have to be negative either: objectively, it is ideal for the small business-person to keep focused and on track to achieve their business goals.
I was struck by how practical life coaching is. At the first meeting with Monika Key, a bright woman who also lectures at the University of Kingston, it was down to business pretty quickly. Out came a pen and paper drawing a circle encompassing my life. She then continued to segment it into areas. The chart consisted of the classic parts: work, home, family, friends, education, hobbies, health, fitness, spirituality and another additional area individual to me, ‘my book’. I then had to grade the areas out of ten. Assessing your life is harder than you may think. I have to add that I am quite fortunate. I enjoy my work. I am in a great relationship. I have loads of friends and generally my life is in good shape. My weak areas showed up as health, fitness and ‘my book’.
Step one: Monika, having established which initial area to work on, set about asking me questions. “What’s stopping you from completing your book?” I drawled out the first reason that sprang to mind… “I’ve nowhere to write at home, I have no space to myself…”. Monika asked, “Well how do you think you can solve this situation?” and so it went on. She won’t offer the answers, you have to find them for yourself.
I seemed to have an excuse for everything. I have completed 160 pages of a book that I hadn’t looked at for over a year. I even have a publisher wanting to take it, regardless. Any excuse was holding me back from completing the first draft. (The main underlying issue holding me back was fear!) Monika, undeterred, just kept working through all my excuses. I found myself entering dates in my diary for the next week promising to do whatever Monika had made me set myself by certain dates. That included a date to go out to buy a desk to write on! It sounds very strange but I did it.
The next meeting took a similar sort of pattern, working through another weak area of my chart, my fitness. Monika asked me what my goals were regarding my getting fit. Again she asked me to say what I felt was achievable; out came the diary and again, I committed myself to going to three gym classes per week. Funny thing, I haven’t missed a class. This is a person who has been a paying person for about a year and only gone on a handful of occasions, even with the gym on my doorstep! By week three, health came up. Dentist: I hadn’t seen him for a while so out came the diary and in went a note to make a date to have a check up. Next issue: couple of moles on my back. I’d always hated them. Another note in my diary to set up appointment with doctor to get them removed. Oh yes, like a lot of us I could do with losing weight… I have always had a weight issue, not enhanced by two stone gained when I gave up smoking three years ago. Same principle applied; I answered Monika’s questions until, again I had committed myself to attending Weight Watchers. Sure enough, two weeks later, there I was being weighed in at a class. A week later at the weigh-in I was 5 pounds lighter! Monika was working.
I continue to see Monika once a month. My weight has now dropped by ten pounds. I’ve seen the dentist. I have had the moles removed. I am still committed to my gym classes and my book draft is now with my editor. Probably somewhere inside you will be a little voice telling you what you really would like to be doing with your life. Having help structuring your life doesn’t mean you’re weak. I’m not.
Monika helps you to establish your goals and then makes you act upon them. Sessions are rather like a self-management meeting. You’ll surprise yourself with what you can achieve. Confidential third-party accountability is a very strange thing. Let’s face it, all the top sportsmen have coaches to keep them focused and on track. Personal trainers keep the basic physically-lazy person pounding a treadmill: when left to their own devices they’d probably not even go to the gym, let alone make it to the treadmill. So why shouldn’t we need someone who keeps us working on our life? Life Coaching will either transform your life totally or at least alter it for the better, of that I have no doubt.
© Time and Leisure
Article published in Time & Leisure Magazine, 2003 - written by the Advertising Manager
