What is life coaching?

Simple: it is providing a knowledgeable, outside perspective to someone who seeks to accomplish certain goals in their life.

A life coach is not necessarily a therapist nor a friend.  A life coach is there to help determine how a person can best achieve their personal goals, or even what those goals should be in the first place.

Life coaching is unique in that it can provide a person with an impartial voice that is capable of sussing out their own skills, goals, hopes, and capabilities and putting them to good use.

Everyone has goals, whether conscious or unconscious: goals in their career, goals for their family, goals for their health.

But goals can be hard to achieve without support, and at times the supports available are themselves partial to solutions that might not be the best fit with the individual’s character or ethics.

What is a life coach but someone who can impartially help someone to think critically about their ambitions and to set achievable goals on the right path?

A good life coach will use a variety of methods to help a client meet set goals, and the best life coaches are those that can come up with creative ideas that will harden their client’s resolve and stoke their passions.

A life coach isn’t just a cheerleader or sympathetic ear. They’re there to be tough when toughness is required, kind when kindness is needed, determined when determination is called for, and a source of wisdom and sound advice when advice is indispensable.

Most importantly, a life coach is capable of assessing a client’s own capabilities and helping them to broaden their view.

Most people underestimate their own inner strength, and some overestimate what anyone is capable of achieving in a set time frame. They have to be realists, going with what works and refusing to countenance ideas or methods that do not work.

In short the answer to the question of what is a life coach can be best answered with another question: what does the person hiring the life coach need to help them succeed?

Dr. Ron Eccles specializes in life and business coaching with a focus on changing the way you perceive and think about your world and your ability to be successful in it.