What Is A Life Coach? The Expert Panel Answers
- Jan 20, 2023
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 17, 2024
Expert Panelists are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within the areas of Business, Mindset, Leadership, Lifestyle, and Sustainability. Members of The Brainz Magazine community of experts will share their best tips, advice, ideas, and hacks on different topics.
Expert Panelists
1. Helps people to be more fully connected human beings
Life coaches can be as multifaceted as human beings are, and that is what the job asks of us. We’re here to help people understand who they are, what their deeper purpose is, and how to live with more joy, passion, connection, and intention. I often quote social justice activists Grace Lee and Jimmy Boggs in relation to the coaching process because the desired outcome is the same: “becoming more human beings." As a coach, I help people connect with all the parts of themselves that make them human. Encountering, listening, and developing their authentic voice and integrating these different aspects of who they are. Allows them to show up in their personal and professional lives with more confidence and clarity, respond and communicate in more alignment with their whole self, and feel the freedom to be who they have always been but because of society, trauma or old patterns have become masked to them in some way. We peel back those masks layer by layer, so they can be all of themselves
2. Has the ability to accept judgment and willingness to learn
Interested in what makes a life coach? As I started my journey to being a career and life coach, it provided me the opportunity to learn how to transcend judgment of the client. It is instrumental that a life coach has the ability to meet the client where they are at and recognize each person’s journey is unique. Life coaches can work with individuals at all stages and careers and life. The most effective life coaches recognize that each person they meet teaches them something new in their coaching practice.
3. Encourage a transformation journey
Do you have goals and desires in life and just don't know how to make them happen? Are you feeling stuck in some ways and can't see the answers? Then a life coach is your guide on your transformation journey who will show you different perspectives, shed a light on your blind spots, call you out when you're hiding behind a problem and cheer you up so you can carry on! Great coaches will also teach you different tools and strategies, but you have to be committed, trust the coach and do the work! Otherwise, nothing will happen!
4. Empowers to cultivate awareness
Coaching is goal focused, meaning we approach everything from the lens of what is impacting your ability to achieve this desired goal or end state. A coach helps clients see themself and their situation clearly and to empower them with the confidence and the capabilities to take action toward their desires. A coach is someone who empowers their clients to take action by helping them cultivate their awareness. It’s someone who is able to hold up a mirror for them to see themself clearly. To see unhelpful patterns of thought and behaviour that could be blocking them from moving forward, but also so they can see their gifts, their potential and their ability to overcome. Coaches should be experts at asking really powerful questions that help draw out the client’s inner wisdom and tap into their highest self. As clients take action toward their goals, they’ll inevitably hit challenges and coaches ultimately help them navigate them with guidance, support and accountability.
5. Listens and inspires you to open new possibilities
First of all, a Life Coach listens. We help you reconnect to yourself and your dreams, inspire you to take action towards desired changes and outcomes, and support you to do all the inner work necessary so that you become the person who can enjoy and sustain your amazing choices, growth and success. It is important you and your Life Coach feel a true connection to each other, to make the most of this amazing discovery journey!
6. Identifies the roadblock to your success
Life coaches encourage people to achieve increased fulfillment in their lives by helping them make progress in their lives, whether in their personal or professional life. In addition to improving client relationships and careers, life coaches empower the client to live the life they want to live by facilitating a process of dialogue through effective, high-order question mastery. Life coaches do not identify a client's problem. Life coaches help and empower the client to identify the obstacles, limiting beliefs, and mental models that serve as a barrier to entry to the client's success. Helping the client to clarify their goals and developing their own strategic path to overcome them are just some of the services a life coach can assist with.
7. A professional faithful partner
Life Coach is your faithful partner in redesigning all aspects of your life. Why do people seek professionals when the car is broken, or when something else needs to be mended? They want a professional to assist them for best possible results. A life coach is a professional who is equipped with coaching tools and will help you redesign your life, just the way you want it! Life Coach today, for your new life tomorrow.
Emma Persson, MCC & Director of Coaching Education
8. Guides you to healing spiritually, mentally and emotionally
A life coach can help you improve every area of life – relationships, health, financial well-being, business success, spiritual growth, and overall living life more fully. Life coaches are uniquely equipped to listen deeply to what you want and guide you in moving in the direction of your dreams. A great life coach is a gardener of clients' lives, weeding, nurturing, and nourishing them, encouraging them to grow in their own way and bloom in their own colors. Many people talk about what they want and never take the steps to get there. There are many different reasons: limiting beliefs, not believing it’s possible, lack of emotional, mental and spiritual skills, not being able to set priorities and manage activities, and procrastination. A life coach can help you overcome all of these blocks. Life coaching is one-to-one consultation with a trained coach who can guide you in making life changes.
9. Supports you in reclaiming and regenerating your life
Young people transition to emerging adults with help from college internships and early career programs. Yet many midlife professionals feel trapped in the status quo, never quite reaching their next stage potential. Because there's no roadmap for those of us who've spent decades holding down jobs, raising families, and shouldering other responsibilities. No direct path pointing from what's last to what's next. Paradoxically, what got you to your current level of success can hold you back from your next. To help you evolve to your next chapter, a Life Coach helps you reclaim and regenerate your life – from success to significance. But you can't wait until we’re ready. “Ready” will never come.
10. An expert who offers direction and support
A life coach is an expert who offers direction, support, and responsibility to people in order to help them achieve their personal and professional goals. A life coach works one-on-one with clients to identify areas of their lives where they want to make changes, set realistic objectives, and develop a strategy to get there. Several different areas can be included in life coaching, including but not limited to: Career development: A life coach can assist clients in identifying their talents and passions, setting career objectives, and developing a strategy to get there. Personal growth: A life coach can assist customers in resolving personal problems, including low self-worth, a lack of self-confidence, and other similar challenges. Relationships: Whether a client wants to strengthen their bonds with their significant other, their family, or their friends, a life coach may assist them.
Dr. Terence McIvor, Irish Guild for NLP, Hypnotherapy and 3 Principles Practitioners and Trainers
