WHAT'S SO SPECIAL ABOUT LIFE COACHING? By Hindy Lieberman

People ask me what I’m doing, and I tell them that I am life coaching. They look back at me with a dumb stare, as if I told them that I’m building igloos in Alaska.

When someone really listens to you—someone who is fully present and completely focused on what you say—it feels very good, almost like a warm bath and a nurturing piece of pie. We feel validated, supported, encouraged, and whole. You may feel this way with a good friend, a spouse, a mentor, a rabbi, a therapist, etc. As adults, we all have many issues to solve. They’re personal, professional, or a combination of the two. A therapist is not always needed, as the issue does not require looking back into the past, and/or healing old emotional wounds (though that might happen in life coaching on some secondary level, too).

It’s often unlikely that a friend or spouse is available to work through an issue with you on a consistent basis (as much as they love you), nor do they have the special skill set unique to a professional life coach in order to help you move forward, gain clarity, keep the focus, stay accountable, develop yourself, and reach your goals.

Life coaching is the art and science of getting you where you want to go. Bridging the gap from where you are now to where you want to be. It is a synergistic, powerful, creative, collaborative partnership between two adults, putting all their kochos into your special vision for yourself—or finding one, if that’s your goal. You may use a life coach to sort out your feelings and gain clarity on an appropriate path to take, or talk about daily struggles at home or work and figure out steps to solve/resolve them.

You might want to use a life coach to grow your business more successfully. The most successful businesspeople today are hooked on life coaching. One can read an article in Harvard Business Review about this.

Writers love life coaching to help them get started, keep to a schedule, and speak about the growth of their projects in an ongoing venue. If you are in a transition, such as divorce or other change of life, life coaching can be the perfect place to sort it all out, get ideas, and take forward action steps.

A coach operates on a very high level of listening, support, encouragement, and trust. They are there to laugh with you, or cry with you—whichever you prefer. They will come up with creative solutions, brainstorm ideas, and share experiences. A coach will challenge you (at your own pace), give you assignments, and ask you powerful questions. This enables you to reach your own clarity much faster than you could alone!

Each week the coach holds the focus of the session according to what you agree upon at the beginning. And each week you will walk away with action steps to further your development or desired outcome. There is always positive forward movement.