Moving forward successfully.
By Mark Hirst
28th January 2007.
What is Life Coaching?
Life Coaching uses effective techniques to enable you to understand your strengths, takes you through a process to identify strategies and steps so that you can unlock the true potential within yourself in every area of your life
Coaching is a relationship where you are the focus.
Your coach will listen to your words and what’s behind them, even when you can’t hear it in yourself.
Coaching makes you accountable and keeps you moving forward towards your dreams and goals.
Within coaching you are allowed to share your dreams, aspirations, values and passions in your life.
What self-limiting beliefs have you got that hold you back?
Coaching allows you to break free of these self-limiting beliefs and then watch yourself move forward.
Who hires a coach?
If you read the papers you would think its only celebrities that hire coaches, this is untrue people from all ages and backgrounds seek a professional life coach to assist them move forward
Is Life Coaching for me?
Consider the following: -
- Did you achieve everything you wanted to during 2006? If not, what stopped you?
- What three things do you want to achieve during 2007?
- Do you know how to achieve these goals by yourself?
- You know yourself better than anybody else.
How does coaching fit in with my child’s education?
From your answers to the last set of questions you may have rightly thought that 2006 was a successful year. Getting back to work, finally getting the overdue promotion or just managed to have that long overdue holiday.
However, did you consider within you success the requirements of your children’s education? I am sure you did in one way or another. If not don’t worry, this is not a shock tactic to make you feel guilty but to make you aware of how 2007 can be better for everyone within you household.
How many areas and tasks within our busy lives do we try to complete every day? The travel to and from work or getting the children from school is taking longer now, due to those road works. Having to work later to meet the deadlines of an over bearing demanding boss.
Going to a fitness class twice a week to become a healthy fitter person.
There are only so many hours in the day, so what gives, when your child approaches with a request for help with homework? Is the reply ‘Its ages since I was at school I wont be able to help’ a true reflection, or is it that you are genuinely busy or worn out?
Maybe all your child needed was ten minutes for you to chat about your own life experiences to assist with a school project. Then don’t despair because that is where life coaching comes into play. This will assist you to achieve a total balance in every area of your life. As a result you should be able to do everything you wish and most importantly make valuable time to aid your child’s development.
The two life balance coaching wheels shows this in more detail. Each area is scored out of ten, in relation to the total fulfilment the person has within that area. (10 totally satisfied).
This first wheel shows a person who has total balance.
This second wheel shows someone who is not in total balance in the area of family/children.
When looked at more closer the two areas that need to be addressed is a Family meal twice a week and Aware of Homework needs. Both only were scored as six. However, if one really wants to achieve a positive balance, then they can, providing they are able to take stock and perform a detailed self-assessment of the current position, one can look upon this task as a yearly MOT. It can be compared to the yearly car MOT, however, if you had the car serviced at regular intervals during the year then hopefully not much work is required to pass the test which will save money and the ensure a longer life of the vehicle. Therefore in coaching it is advisable to set short, medium and long term goals for you to aim for and achieve. It also helps to write these goals down, share them with some one and constantly review them.
The example given above will be achieved if the individuals looked at his or her own time management. By keeping a daily journal for time spent throughout the day. This would enable them to identify wasted time by measuring the outcomes and quality of time given to each area. Then any wasted time can be spent during the next day or week to have the family meal or look at the homework when presented. Procrastination is one of the main reasons people don’t achieve all the things that they wish to in life.
Therefore having and working on clear defined goals can be very rewarding when you look back and see what you have achieved not only for yourself but that of your children.
Can coaching be used to aid study time?
The coaching wheels are a good tool to use in other areas, take the students during key stage four leading up to the all important exams which can be hard for any 14-16 year old to manage. However, by using the wheels they can work on clear defined goals to enable sufficient study time for all subjects and still be able to enjoy other activities at such an important time in their life.
Mark is a qualified life coach and offers coaching by telephone or in person in the Doncaster, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield and York areas.
For more information contact: info@keen2learn.co.uk
