About Coaching as a Profession

Coaching is a new profession that has been growing rapidly recently. It originated in the corporate world during the 1980’s, where coaches were used to help executives become more successful in their business functioning. Coaching is now being used by people at a variety of levels in corporations and with non-profits, small business, professionals, and just ordinary folks. In fact, personal coaching is becoming increasingly popular as a way for individuals to improve their lives.

A life coach, or personal coach or career coach, helps people who are stuck, or who just want to reach the next level, in their personal or professional lives. You may already know that Tiger Woods has a coach. Or that Michael Jordan used six specialty coaches on the way to his six championship rings. Donald Trump has a coach, Oprah was coached through a difficult court trial by the man we now know as Dr. Phil. Dustin Hoffman, Brad Pitt, and Meryl Streep are just a few of the hundreds of top actors who've had coaches. In fact, it's hard to find a very successful person who hasn't had a life coach. One of Jack Canfield's Success Principles, in his bestseller of the same name, is simply this: "Hire a Personal Coach."

Why are successful people hiring coaches?

It's not because they have lives full of problems they can't fix, though coaches can help with those life challenges. No, successful people hire coaches to bring them the insight, extra push, and accountability that takes them from good to great, from doing well to doing better. It's not by magic that we help clients achieve their goals. And with years of experience and the backing of our own personal and professional successes, we excel at uncorking the answers inside you and pouring them into action, using common sense, a sometimes astounding intuition, diverse experience, and scientifically-validated techniques.

It is difficult to be motivated and courageous when you feel trapped and anxious. I believe that positive change comes about when people feel in control and happy about their choices. I don’t think that by being angry with ourselves we can force ourselves to achieve some goal or other.

A Life Coach supports you to think about what you really want from your life and help you see the contradictory way most people are living. Very often, we can only recognize what is missing, or what feels wrong about our lives. What we need to understand is how the choices we make often work against us in achieving what we say is important to us. In other words, we can very often be our own worst enemy by sabotaging our chances of achieving what is important to us by refusing to act differently or make different choices.

A Life Coach challenges you to clearly define what happiness and harmony in life mean by helping create the life you want. Coaches are trained to listen, to observe and to customize their approach to individual client needs.