What is life coaching?

Life Coaching is a motivational and empowering approach which works with simple, practical techniques and strategies to achieve personal and professional success - whatever success might mean for you.

It tends to concentrate on how the present shapes the future, so the emphasis is on taking control of your life now and developing practical ways to transform it. It is focused and pro-active. And naturally optimistic!

You might come with a specific issue and together we devise a plan of action to address it and resolve it. Yet, for me, coaching is not only about isolated problems or behaviours but about the whole person.

I believe that all things are connected so that they influence each other. Therefore we will holistically frame your particular issue in the larger context of your life - what your values and dreams are, what's important to you, what makes you happy...

The process of life coaching

Man can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown. - Claude Bernard

1. We assess your situation: health, relationships, work, etc. and how content you are, what's worrying you, what's holding you back.

2. We identify what's important and what you want; we define your aspirations, and set goals both ambitious and achievable. We explore how your beliefs and habits influence thoughts; how thoughts motivate actions; how actions shape life. Modifying beliefs and habits, or becoming aware of those that count, will bring change. People can sabotage their success by sticking to what they know because change is painfully difficult: it involves taking a faithful, brave step into the unknown. Yet I see change not as a forceful imposition or chore, but as a becoming aware, a letting go and an emergence of new possibilities.

3. We devise plans and strategies to achieve all this by identifying options to remove obstacles and get positive results.

4. We monitor your progress, working through challenging issues to build, if necessary, self-reliance, esteem, and confidence so you can motivate and support yourself.

5. We take positive actions to create change and thus turn your ambitions into reality.

Why coaching needs a coach

Leap and the net will appear. - Zen Saying

Life Coaching is not a prescriptive programme. There is no pre-packed set of solutions. Each coaching encounter is unique because you are unique. I believe you already have all the answers and resources within yourself. My task is to help and motivate you to achieve your goals. We are both totally committed to your success because coaching is a cooperative effort.

As a coach, I want you to develop optimism and enthusiasm about taking up new challenges, so that you can be motivated and courageous even when you feel trapped and anxious, and when the going gets tough and uncomfortable. I have your best interest at heart so I want you to be satisfied and challenged.

Be assured that the whole process is non-judgmental, impartial and completely confidential. I provide a safe, yet challenging, environment. I aid you on your journey of self-knowledge and acceptance, so that you can be more confident in yourself. In doing this, I encourage you to recognise your skills, talents and strengths.

My beliefs about life coaching

If not now, when? - The Talmud

I believe we all have the ability to know ourselves thoroughly, to accept ourselves with compassion and to make difficult and challenging changes that will improve our lives.

Honesty and self-knowledge are essential to achieve the clarity and the confidence needed to face whatever is preventing you from enjoying a life that's in harmony, rather than constantly out of tune.

Then, the decisions you'll take will be for reasons that are right for you - rather than for reasons that are right for your parents, your partner, your children, society...

Once you do this, the people around you will also benefit from your new harmony and contentedness.

I believe that trying to increase your happiness is neither a selfish, nor a vacuous pursuit. Instead, when you live a life that is most attuned and wholesome, you are better able to build and sustain meaningful relationships with others and the world, because you are more open, compassionate and confident.

How long does the coaching last

Depending on the complexity of issues you bring, your availability, etc. we will work for about 6 to 8 sessions, one every 2 to 6 weeks.

Appointments last for 50 minutes.

Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out. - John Woodman

How do I know whether therapy or life coaching is best for me?

If you want to address a particular issue which is mostly practical (career, housing, life planning, etc) then coaching might be best.

If you feel a general sense of dissatisfaction or unhappiness, or if you are aware that things are just not working in your life maybe in your relationships, then therapy might be more helpful.

I'm happy to discuss this with you to find what would be more appropriate.

How do I know if you are the right person for me?

You don't. Yet. Only by meeting, and by working together, you can get a sense of whether I can be right for you: if you can feel at ease, trust me, allow me in... I have tried to give you a flavour of who I am, my ethics, my beliefs, my style, etc in these few pages, but only a real encounter could tell us both if things could work between us.