Want a life coach to help you get out of the boring, unhappy, stressful, or dead-end place you're currently in? Well, not everyone can afford one, will be able to find the right one, has time to see one, or would even end up liking having a stranger play that large a role in their life. Everyone can, however, benefit from some of the core principles of life coaching the DIY way.
How?
What's A Life Coach, Anyway?
Good question.
"Life coach" is not a fancy new word for "psychologist", or at least not usually. Life coaches are a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but if you'd sum their job up in a few words, it might be "cheerleader with a big practical twist".
You may consider hiring a life coach if you feel you're stuck in a rut, coasting along without a clear direction, wasting your time, feeling lost and demotivated. A life coach may also be for you if you actually have a pretty good idea about what you want but aren't sure how to achieve it. Different life coaches may help you supercharge your career, get you in the right frame of mind to find love, or help you focus on caring for you. "Wellness coaches", a sub-type of life coach, are there to deal with things like weight loss, healthy eating, exercise inspiration, quitting smoking, or reducing stress levels.
Though there's no specific degree to become a life coach, life coaches do have a professional organization, the International Coach Federation (ICF), that credentials life coaches across the world using various programs.
Should you really need that boost, finding an ICF-accredited coach can be a great decision. However, the principles guiding the coaching profession can teach us all a bit about how to take better care of ourselves by nurturing our dreams, goals, and wellbeing.
How can you coach yourself?
Practice Active Listening
What's going on in your life right now? What different forces are pulling on you? If you're anything like most people, you've got a partner, kids, relatives, friends, bosses and co-workers all offer their opinions whether you wanted them or not, and demanding your presence and participation in things. You've also got that dirty kitchen, that old car that should really be replaced, leaflets about retirement funds, and others' notions of what you should be achieving in life contributing to the white noise of your mind.
READ What The Heck Is A Life Coach (And How Do They Differ From A Psychologist)?
Active listening — listening, really listening, to the client's goals for themselves rather than the coach's or society's — is one of the core principles of the life coaching profession. It also happens to be a gift that we're capable of offering ourselves. Actively listening to yourself begins with asking critically whether thoughts you're having are really your own, or perhaps what other people want for you. Then, attempt to mindfully sift out that white noise and recognize your very own thoughts in a sea of social expectations.
Coaching Yourself: You Can Do It!
Exploring Your Deepest Thoughts
Once you begin to practice actively listening to yourself, you will certainly achieve a deeper awareness of what your own deepest thoughts, feelings, fears, dreams, and challenges are — and can then begin to explore them in more detail. At first, brainstorming is all you need to do, as long as you commit to truly being honest with yourself (harder than you may think!).
Ask yourself deep and critical questions. Depending on what area of life you discover really needs improvement, they may include such questions as:
- Can I see myself living with my partner for the rest of my life — happily?
- What is holding me back?
- Why am I not advancing in my career?
- What are my real reasons for eating too much?
- How can I manage my finances more smartly?
- Am I really doing right by my family by working this much?
Sitting with the tough questions of life and writing down the answers as they come to you, free-style, can be enormously cathartic and lay the foundations for the next stage — beginning to change things.
Goal Setting
Continuing on the same path, with the same approach, is extremely likely to either maintain the status quo or witness yourself tumbling slowly down the hill. You're feeling stuck. You don't want to feel stuck. You want to feel fulfilled, and happy, and motivated, and useful. You may want a career change, or to finally reach a health weight, or to learn to draw, to learn strategies to prevent toxic relationships, or to find out what it would take for you to not feel this stressed or depressed all the time any more.
After listening to your deepest thoughts and ramblings, after witnessing your increased self-awareness, and after encouraging you on your quest to ask and answer yourself some very tough questions, a life coach would help you set specific, measurable goals that you can work on.
You may decide to explore going back to college, to have a true heart-to-heart chat with your partner about where your relationship is going, to commit to eating low-fat home-cooked meals three times a week, to join a gym and attend it twice a week, or to only ever drink during the weekend, to name a few. These things can help you progress towards over-arching goals of upward mobility, starting a family, losing weight, getting fit, and living a healthy lifestyle.
READ Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Exercises You Can Do At Home Without A Therapist
Accountability And Progress-Tracking
Plenty of people are really quite good at concocting pipe dreams and then forgetting all about them as they sink back into their old rut, every single year. It's called making New Year's resolutions. One of the greatest advantages of getting a life coach is that they keep you accountable and help you track your progress, in addition to helping you uncover your goals. If you want to self-coach, accountability and progress-tracking as just as important.
Therefore:
- Do not just make vague goals, but set a date by which you want to achieve them.
- Give yourself friendly pep-talks in the form of journaling. If that feels creepy, perhaps join an online forum where you can talk about your goals anonymously yet still gain a sense of accountability, or confide in a friend.
- However, realize that the tough voice that places you back on your chosen path when you stray needs to be you, yourself. Motivation needs to be internal.
- Review and update your goals regularly.
While being your own life coach can't possibly offer the same experience as having someone else coach you, you can absolutely achieve an awful lot by committing to these principles.
Sources & Links
- Photo courtesy of brettlohmeyer via Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/34536315@N04/3365337619
- Photo courtesy of brettlohmeyer via Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/34536315@N04/3365337619
- Photo courtesy of L_joy via Flickr: c1.staticflickr.com/1/138/329506547_0517a308e1_o.jpg