If you are considering a change of career and moving into the life coaching sector then it is important to consider the core competencies of an effective Life Coach. What types of skills and abilities will you need to motivate your clients and help them to achieve their personal or professional objectives? This is the first of seven assignments completed as part of a Life Coaching Course I undertook with the Home Learning College , which looks at the core competencies of an effective life coach. I can highly recommend the Home Learning College life coaching course, which leads to a recognised qualification in Life Coaching. You are provided with a superb reference guide and one to one tutoring via email or phone. I must stress that I do not earn any financial incentive for referring people to their site.

Question 1

Question 1 - From the list of areas that life coaching can help, pick two with which you are unhappy and write about how you would improve the areas so that you were happy with them.

Health

Having recently been diagnosed with a long term illness I am facing the possibility of having to give up my current employment. I am already making steps to adapt so that I can work my employment around my health rather than the other way around, in order to get a better work life balance.

I have decided to embark upon a career as a life coach and set up my own business so that I can work more flexible hours which take account my current health condition. The first step has been to research the life coaching market in my local area. The next step was to obtain a recognised qualification in life coaching and hence why I am now studying this course. The final phase will be to set up my business once I have achieved my diploma and to start advertising for clients. I am also actively seeking medical treatment to enable my condition to stabilise in the medium to long term and to provide me with a better quality of life.

I am also embarking upon an educational campaign with family and friends to provide them with more specific information about my health condition so that they have an understanding of the effect it has and so that they are able to understand why I am unable to do the things I did previously and help them adjust to this situation. All of these factors will, I hope, improve my quality of life and enable me to make a positive contribution to society.

Social Life

Since becoming unwell I have discovered that my circle of friends has reduced because I am unable to be as active as before. This can be frustrating when I know that friends are going out but that I am unable to join them. One way in which I could improve this is by encouraging friends to come to my house for a meal in addition to them going out as a group. This could easily be achieved by asking each of them to cook a dish or bring dessert or drinks and still being able to enjoy each others company.

Another way to improve this situation would be to contact individual friends and arrange to visit them for coffee If I am feeling a little better that day so that we can chat and catch up with the weeks events.

I could also join a social networking site like face book, of which most of my friends are members and keep in contact through this online method.

Think of two other areas of a person’s life that could be improved through life coaching and why you think it would help.

Dreams Life coaching could have a positive effect on this aspect of a client’s life for many reasons. Firstly each of us has a personal dream and the coaching process would help the client to realise their ambition by helping the to break it down into a series of achievable goals and objectives so that it is transformed from a theoretical concept into concrete reality. Secondly we often settle for a lesser version of our dreams particularly as we become bogged down by financial and practical commitments. Life coaching can help the client to verbalise these dreams or ambitions and in doing so, help on the path towards turning them into reality with the goal of bringing greater fulfilment into the client’s life.

Spiritual

Many people look for spiritual fulfilment in order to enable them to live a more peaceful and balanced life. Life coaching can help by offering space and time for the client to discuss matters of spirituality and explore a preferred form that helps them to achieve their desired goal. The coaching process can stimulate discussion and thought around issues of spirituality by the use of open questions by the coach which explore what the clients needs are, the reasons for those needs and how they can take positive steps towards fulfilling them.

Question 3

Pick two life areas that life coaching can help. For each one write a list of ten questions that are designed to help the client look at these from another perspective to decide whether or not they are happy with them.

Work

1. Thinking of friends or family that you know well, how would they describe your feelings towards your current job?

2. Has your health ever been directly affected by your job, if so how and what could you do to change it?

3. Has your personal life ever been affected by your job? if so how and what could you do to change it?

4. Tell me the first thing that comes into your head when you think about your current employment and why you think that is.

5. Make a list of three words you would use to describe your current employment, what prompted you to think of these?

6. How would you describe your current work/life balance?

7. How do you think your friends or family would describe your current work/life balance?

8. What job satisfaction do you receive from your current employment?

9. What would be your dream job and why?

10. Is there anything you would change about your current job? If so what and why would you change it?

Social Life

1. Are there any areas of your social life you would like to change? If so why?

2. What does the term friendship mean to you? And how would you assess your current friendships against it?

3. Do you enjoy spending time with friends and family? Do you spend enough time doing these?

4. Are there any new social activities you would like to explore? If so are there any barriers preventing you from accomplishing this?

5. How would your friends or family describe your social life?

6. How much time do you dedicate to your social life? Is this enough and if not how could you go about making more time available?

7. Are there any aspects of your friendships that you would like to change? If so what and why?

8. What aspects of your social life do you find fulfilment in?

9. How could changing your social life improve your lifestyle?

10. How do you feel after spending time with friends? (This question explores whether current friendships are positive or negative)

Question 4

Write down five suggestions you would make to a client looking to improve their working life through a change of career.

In order to avoid wrongly influencing the client, I would try to phrase any suggestions with the words “Have you considered” in order to prompt the client to think through the comments rather than saying “You Should do this…” 1. Have you considered making a list of the aspects of your social life you do like and perhaps scheduling more time on these aspects.

2. Have you considered making a list of the key characteristics you look for in a friendship and then comparing this against your current friendships, to decide whether they are supportive?

3. Have you considered making your own suggestions to friends about what you would like to do when you go out, rather than just going along with their choices?

4. Have you considered reducing your other commitments such as work, or leaving the office slightly earlier to enable you to participate more fully in social activities?

5. Have you considered trying new social activities for a short time to see if there is anything different you would enjoy?

Question 5

Write down five suggestions that you would make to a client looking to improve their social life.

1. Have you considered doing some research into different types of employment available to you?

2. Have you considered talking to someone in a preferred profession/job/vocation who can share their experiences and provide you with more specific information about your desired career?

3. Have you considered what you will practically need to do to achieve your career change objective?

4. Have you considered other options available to you before deciding upon a career change? Could you achieve your goals through a change of job role or department within in your current employer?

5. Have you considered the impact a change of career with have upon your financial circumstances and how you will adjust to this?

Bibliography

Lewis, G (2000) Mentoring Manager: Strategies for fostering talent and spreading knowledge. Prentice Hall. London .

Life Coaching Diploma: Course Book. (2006) Home Learning College Ltd. London.

Thompson, N (2001) Anti Discriminatory Practice. 3rd Edition. Palgrave. Basingstoke.

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