Life Coaching 101: Definition, Benefits, and FAQ

Last Updated on March 17, 2022 by Ray

We have all heard the term life coach, but what does that mean? When someone is searching for answers in their life, a professional coach can help them navigate through their emotions and feelings. If you have always wondered about a life coach and what these professionals do for a living, make sure to keep reading this 101 article to learn about this career.

What Is a Life Coach?

Life coaches can help others to seek peace and harmony in their lives. These coaches are wellness professionals who strive to help others achieve great fulfillment in their relationships, career, or personal journey. Some life coaches focus on specific aspects of a person’s life, such as health and nutrition. Many other coaches help their clients identify obstacles in their lives, clarify those goals, and design strategies for overcoming those blockages.

With a life coach, you can create a plan that plays to your strengths. Along with that, the life coach is always there to offer support when you are ready to make those long-lasting changes.

Related: How To Become a Life Coach

What Does a Life Coach Do?

A life coach is someone who can encourage and counsel you and a broad range of personal and professional issues. It’s a practice that’s distinct from consulting, counseling, therapy, and simply getting advice from someone.

People work with life coaches to help them with lifestyle transitions, meet their personal goals, or with specific professional projects.

Life coaches do this by analyzing your situation, determining potential challenges and limiting beliefs, and helping you devise custom plans to achieve the specific outcomes that you want.

The relationship between a life coach and client isn’t a one-way street—it’s a creative partnership. From your first meeting to your ongoing sessions, a life coach can help you:

• Identify and create a vision for the things you want in your personal and professional life
• Modify your goals as things change
• Encourage personal growth and self-discovery
• Nurture and develop strategies and plans of action based on your specific goals, vision, and personality
• Foster accountability to help increase your productivity

Here’s what else life coaches can do for you:

• Understand your purpose to set and hit the right objectives
• Achieve your personal health and fitness goals
• Reignite the passion in your relationships
• Break through limitations to become a more effective leader
• Gain the confidence to make it through unexpected changes
• Grow your business in times of uncertainty

Just remember—the best things in life aren’t easy to obtain. However, they are worth working for. Life coaches work with you long-term, and it takes commitment and time to see the results you want.

History of Life Coaching

Coaching has been around for several years, but the current life coaching industry is relatively new. However, this field draws its roots from other disciplines. Many life coaching focuses on the human potential movement of the 1960s, along with adult education, personal development, leadership training, and physiology of the later generations.

In the 1980s, life coaching began to start hitting the mainstream, and it would skyrocket in the 1990s and 2000s. Many early life coaches focused on life skills, but the industry started to include coaching for health, careers, finances, relationships, and the individual’s overall well-being.

Should I Consider Working With a Life Coach?

Do you feel stuck in life? Are you worried about making the right decision? You might have experienced a life-changing event. All these situations are perfect reasons to seek advice from a life coach. You don’t even need to have something happen to you to look for guidance. Many people will turn to a life coach to help build a happier and more meaningful life.

In some cases, there are a few indications that you should turn to a life coach. These professionals can offer advice that might be able to help you turn around those bad or negative feelings. Some of these signs include:

• High levels of anxiety or stress
• Frequent irritability
• Unable to break bad habits
• Feeling dissatisfied at work
• Lack of personal fulfillment
• Sense of blocked creativity

At one time, life coaches were seen as only those services afforded for celebrities. However, in the last few years, many more life coaches have entered the mainstream, and everyone is seeing the benefits of hiring these professionals. You might even see a life coach in a corporate setting. These coaches are working with entrepreneurs, executives, and creatives to help their teams achieve success in their personal and professional lives.

Need help reaching that full potential in your life or career? Schedule a life coaching consultation with Ray of Solace.

Are There Different Types of Coaches?

Like everything in life, you can find a specialized coach for your needs. In some cases, life coaches will focus on those general and all-encompassing approaches to life. However, many others specialize in helping individuals in specific problem areas of their lives. Some of these specialized coaches focus on:

• Leadership, executive, and business
• Career
• Addiction
• Relationship and dating
• Fitness, health, and diet
• Divorce
• Financial
• Family life
• Life skills
• Mental health
• Spirituality

Is There a Difference Between a Therapist and a Life Coach?

When you think about it, there are similarities between a life coach and a therapist. However, these two professionals serve a unique prospect with distinct roles.

Therapists and mental health professionals focus on treating and healing mental health conditions. Many of these professionals have to work with the individual to work on those traumatic incidents from their past. In some cases, a life coach can help with some unresolved feelings; these professionals are not trained to assist with addiction, anxiety disorders, mood disorders, or other severe mental health problems.

Along with that, therapists are usually certified by their home state and must pass specific tests to become eligible to provide services to others. Therapists must also adhere to certain ethical codes. If they do not, they could lose their license and be prevented from providing services to patients.

Life coaches do not require any specialized training to help others. However, many of these professionals will seek out certification from accredited groups in the country, like The IAPO International Organization of Professional Life Coaches. Life coaches are also not licensed to treat any mental health conditions, and they do not have to abide by health privacy laws.

On the other hand, a therapist does have an ethical code and often receives ongoing training to improve their skills. If you are searching for the right professional for your life, you need to consider a few factors. For those who have difficulty concentrating, mood disturbances, and feelings of hopelessness, you will want to seek help from a trained mental health professional. While a life coach can help you get your life back on track, a professional should treat some mental health issues.

One way to distinguish life coaching from therapy is that coaching is more action-orientated, while therapy is insight-oriented.

Related: About Life Coach Ray

What To Know About a Life Coaching Session

If you have ever been to a therapy session, you will immediately know the difference when you speak to a life coach. Many life coaches will ask their clients to fill out a questionnaire to help identify goals. In some cases, the life coach could provide some “homework” for their client. This homework can help the individual bulls skills to accomplish their goals in life as they reinforce what they have learned from the life coach.

With a therapy session, the professional will usually let the client dictate the direction of the meeting. The conversion is focused on the clients, with topics focusing on their feelings in the moments. In many cases, the clients gain insights from a discussion with the therapist. Together, the client and therapist can figure out what triggers certain feelings and emotions. The therapist might hand out homework, but it is used to retrain the brain into handling certain aspects of the person’s life.

How Can a Life Coach Help?

When you seek help from a life coach, you will have a fresh and informed perspective on those problems in your life. They can offer new insights into your personal challenges. Along with that, they may be able to zero in those negative patterns that could be the source of holding you back on the road of success.

With a life coach, they can often help bridge the gap between the life you want and your current circumstances. When you work with a life coach, there are plenty of positive outcomes that can result from their services, such as:

• Eliminating of fear and anxieties
• Better life and work balance
• Greate finance health
• Enhanced creativity
• Improved communication skills
• Stronger relationships with family and friends
• Satisfying work life

In some cases, the individual will seek out a life coach to help in other areas of their lives, like finding a partner. Some people have past traumas or barriers that prevent them from finding the love of their life. With a life coach, he or she can help to identify those issues to assist in achieving a fulfilling relationship. Others attend a life coaching session to help identify their true passion in life. For many people, they take that advice and carve out the ideal career path for themselves,

Many of these life coaching sessions will take place on a regular basis for several months or years. The life coach wants to make sure the clients take their advice and implement the right tools to experience a significant change in their lives.

Some people seek out the assistance of a life coach to help with accountability. If a person needs help with weight loss, they might hire a life coach to keep them accountable in the gym or on a diet. In addition to providing motivation and support, the coach can give the client a little momentum in their life. They might even be able to help them overcome plateaus or calibrate any life goals. With the help of a life coach, the client can achieve those goals quickly and more efficiently than if they choose to tackle those goals by themselves.

Related: How To Start a Life Coaching Business

Life Coaches Make Significant Impacts

Some people might think that the benefits of life coaching are only subjective. However, there have been studies conducted on these benefits. Life coaching can help in a number of ways. For example, life coaching is an excellent way to improve goal attainment and reduce procrastination. Health and wellness coaching is known to boost self-empowerment and self-efficacy. Finally, in a 2020 study conducted by Frontiers in Psychology, researchers found out that coaching-based leadership interventions are effective at enhancing well-being and improving functioning within businesses and corporations.

Along with that, more research is showing that life coaching can provide a wide range of positive effects for those clients, such as improving self-reflection and personal insight. Life coaching may even be able to improve a person’s quality of life and mental health.

Tips for Finding the Right Life Coach

Your life coaching session can take many different forms. Some coaches love to meet their clients in person. There are others who may conduct a meeting over Skype or the phone. When you are ready to find the right life coach for you, it is important to focus on those vital issues for your sessions. Remember, this session is all about you. You should feel empowered and uplifted when you are done. If you don’t, it might be time to find another coach. It is important to find a coach who has a personality, philosophy, and style that can resonate with you. Make sure to search your local area for the right coach. You can always ask your friends for a referral or consult with a professional organization such as the International Coach Federation.

Before you start your session, you should know that results will not always be immediate. After the first session, your life coach will help you address problems, make plans, and help you work towards achieving your goals. You must remember that self-help does take time. A great coach will help you set short- and long-term goals for yourself. With that, you can celebrate those little achievements in your life.

You always have to remember that not all life coaches have the same approach to tackling a problem. You need to find a coach who understands your issues and will make a plan that you can stick to in your life. It would be best to find a coach who matches with your personality and has the same approach to solving specific problems.

If you have mental health issues, it might be time to speak to a trained medical professional. Depression and anxiety are mental health problems that need to be addressed by a certified professional. Life coaches can provide some advice to you, but you should never use them in place of seeing a medical doctor. You can always work with both a therapist and life coach to help you push through any of these issues.

Now that you know about life coaching, you can decide if it is the right option for your life.

Are you interested in seeking advice for your career, life, or relationship? Make sure to contact Ray of Solace to set up a personal life coaching session.