The Life Coaching Process

What is the Life Coaching Process? 

Life Coaching is a collaborative process that  involves a professionally trained life coach helping the client achieve professional, personal or relationship goals.

How to find the right coach is a crucial question for most people. Understanding the process of life coaching may aid in finding a good coach- client fit. 

As stated earlier, life coaching is a lot about collaboration. This is why the process cannot be exactly replicated in two people. A good life coaching program engages the client/individual in a holistic manner so as to touch crucial points of his/her life and behavioural patterns.

While practising life coaching in Singapore, I always begin my coaching process with building a positive rapport with my clients. I believe trust is the foundation that allows a client to be vulnerable, and transformation is not possible without vulnerability.

The process of life coaching 

Life coaching demands collaboration and discipline. This may sound difficult for a lot of people who are not used to schedules and plans. A good solution to this challenge is having a coach with a methodical approach and a set process.

The process of life coaching involves the following steps: 

# 1 Building rapport and trust: A good life coaching engagement lays much emphasis on building the initial rapport with the client, and understanding the whole person.  As your life coach, I   want to know your life story, history and context.

# 2 Determining priority areas: Beyond understanding the person, and their history,  the life coach proceeds to work with you towards defining the priority areas. This may entail making lists or determining priorities that need more urgent attention.

# 3 Identifying challenges/problem zones: More often than not, clients do not realize the presence of any challenges or problem zones in their life. Or they do not consider the presence of some variable as a challenge. Here’s where a life coach gives the client a perspective about the possible problem zones.

#4 Cleanslating and clearing emotional baggage: Before we set out to reset and reorient your life, it is important to start with a clear space. This is where I will work with my clients to uncover and clean past baggage

#4 Uncovering your Authentic Self: As a coach, I believe it is integral for each person to understand and know their authentic self, and define goals that are in alignment of that self. Once we are done clean slating, we can start the discovery of the true self. Here we will delve into values and strengths.

# 4 Establishing and defining goals : By now the priority areas are determined. The next stage is to establish and define what you wish to achieve and accomplish in life, and set a clear pathway for  forward movement.

# 5 Defining action points : Then come the action points – a stage where some clients get a little uncomfortable. This is because aligning with a new way of being, requires us to make some shifts in our discipline, behaviour,  reactions and such. However, this is phase 2 of the coaching program and  crucial to lasting change.  This is where the clients will use  their own strengths to execute action points with a positive outlook.

# 6 Making the commitment to achieve the set goals : Commitment is everything in life coaching. It is not enough for the life coach to be committed towards helping the client, the latter needs to be equally committed to make changes in their life.

# 7 Measuring progress: From time to time, the life coach will help you measure progress on your larger goals and small adjustments.

# 8 Accountability : Another way to keep the clients on the track to progress is to create accountability tools and points. These are often developed together where the client is also advised to create his/her own ways of accountability for the future.

# 9 Celebrating success and empowering clients to be self sufficient: Before the life coach concludes the process of coaching, he/she ensures that the client has a clear idea of success and a path to lead himself/herself independently in the future as well.

What does the process of life coaching look like in practice?

• Weekly or fortnightly sessions with the life coach
• Bringing a challenge,  unpacking the real problems and devising solutions
• Learning new tools and strategies that are used to deal with everyday challenges
• Empowering clients to dissociate from the ‘I can’t’ mindset
• Motivating them to work towards goals
• Collaborating on creating practical solutions and actions points
• Counselling or therapy if needed

I personally go the extra mile to make sure that my clients are comfortable with a certain way of achieving their goals. I emphasise a lot on their comfort levels about setting the goals, ways to achieve them, channelizing their strengths and managing their weaknesses.