Many people feel that their life is not under their control. A life coach can help to find a path through such challenges by helping people to work out what really matters and make choices which satisfy their needs and wishes and lead to a more satisfying life.
Many people are aware that they do not like where they are at present - perhaps because a career or personal relationship is ‘not working’ - but see no clear alternative path. Some people find that they need a new direction, such as in the case of redundancy or retirement.
It is very difficult to take any action to change a situation if you are unsure where you want to be afterwards. People find it much easier to say what they don’t like than what they do like, but academic research has shown that movement towards a desired state is much more powerful as a motivating force than movement away from an undesired state. Simply saying ‘I don’t like my job’ does not help you get a new one.
In coaching, this is approached in a positive way. If you were seeking a new career direction Joanna would help you to focus on the following steps. Firstly, identifying all the elements of a job which you feel are particularly rewarding and enjoyable, for example, location, working hours, type of activity and whether you prefer working with a team or more independently. On this basis, a job could be articulated which strongly incorporates most of these elements. Finally, Joanna would help you to visualise, or create a clear picture of what the desired job is like on a day-to-day basis and how good you feel as a result. This makes it much easier for you to take the necessary actions to achieve this state.
The consequences of not taking action are often explored too, but again in a positive way. This may take the form of projecting into the future to see how you would like your life, relationships, career or other situation to be. Coaching would help you to paint an idealised picture – but then encourage you to draw links and matches between your current and future ideal life and spot the things which really need to change to make that desired future happen.
The revelation for most people is that they are already on their way to achieving their goals, because many things do not have to change. All they have to do is recognise and focus on the remaining changes to create the future they want.