By Cherry Claus (United Kingdom)
Many of the common themes for Life Coaching include: helping clients to build their confidence; deal with stress; achieve a better work life balance; change their career; discover their life purpose; recover from relationships or divorce; to successfully embark on new relationships or improve existing ones or simply to work towards achieving their goals.
The one thing that the above all have in common is that there will be obstacles or challenges that are preventing clients from achieving their goals. If there were none, clients would not need a coach. One of the main reasons a client engages a Life Coach is to help deal with those challenges and obstacles.
Life Coaching can take place on many different levels. Many coaches tackle obstacles from a very practical level with the emphasis being placed on what clients’ can do to help themselves overcome the obstacle. This can be highly effective and sometimes is all that is needed for a client to be able to move forward.
However, when exploring what’s getting in the way of a client moving forward or achieving their goals, coaches often uncover fear and negative emotions: fear of change; fear of stepping outside of their comfort zones; fear of failure; fear of success; frustration; anger; disappointment; anxiety or impatience. These types of obstacles can be more challenging to deal with using traditional coaching methods.