Personal Growth

4 Benefits of Having a Life Coach

4 Benefits of Having a Life Coach
The New Year isn’t the only time of year to think about resolutions, goals, and intentions for a better life. If you are like many people, you may not even know where to start when it comes to setting and achieving goals for yourself—whether it be professional, personal, or financial goals. Or you might be great at planning goals, but do not have a successful track record for achieving them.

If this sounds like you, you may want to consider hiring a life coach to support you in plotting out your future, overcoming your personal challenges, and helping to keep you on track.

What Is A Life Coach?

People need support to thrive at life. A life coach can assist and encourage you, without passing judgement or feigning interest. They can help you perform at your fullest potential professionally, personally, and financially—such as helping you with your relationships, career, health goals, communication skills, debt, and spirituality.

Life coaches are masters at the tools necessary for achieving goals. Part of their job will be helping you to figure out what has been holding you back or getting in your way of success, and then they help you to push past whatever that is. They are often experienced at overcoming obstacles and achieving results themselves, and they use their learned experience to help others do the same.

Working with a life coach can be an easy and convenient option because most offer sessions over the phone or online if in-person sessions are not feasible. At first, your sessions might be more frequent or longer as your coach gets to know you. They will ask clarifying questions meant to uncover any hidden information or deep desires, then help you to clarify your goals and set a structured plan in place for you to achieve those goals.

After some initial progress has been made, your sessions might be less frequent where your life coach will support you in staying on your path to success, hold you accountable, and give you an extra push when you need it. They will support you and celebrate your every milestone, no matter how small.

Still not convinced? Here are four reasons why you should think about having a life coach to help you realize your goals.

1. Provides Clarity and Direction

The first thing a life coach is going to want to do is understand who you are and what you want. Sometimes you may know exactly what you want in your life, and other times you may have no idea. If you are feeling a sense of unhappiness or dissatisfaction and can’t quite put a name to it, a life coach can help. Clarity involves being clear about who you are and living a life that is meaningful and purposeful to you. It means knowing what you want, why you want it, and how you can go about it getting it.

Coaching is a process that can help you uncover your gifts and talents, and discover what gives your life meaning. There may be blind spots or hidden gems below the surface that you are unable to uncover yourself. With a help of a coach, clarity and direction can unfold, leading you to a fulfilling, intentionally satisfying life.

2. Helps with Goal Setting

Setting personal goals is not always easy, and long-term goals can be particularly difficult to visualize. You may be used to setting goals in the near term, but setting up goals and understanding where you want to be in the future is extremely valuable. For some people, this can be a daunting and anxiety-inducing task.

A life coach can guide you through the process of setting goals by helping you understand your immediate and future wants and needs. They can provide you with leading questions that can help you to discover something profound about yourself and what you want out of life. They can also help you stay organized and make a plan to get results. Sometimes the hardest part of achieving goals is to make a plan that is realistic. If your plan is overly ambitious, you might get discouraged and sideswiped from your journey. A good life coach will make sure each step in your plan is attainable and specific enough so that you are crystal clear on what you need to do and by when you need to do it.

3. Provides Unbiased Feedback and Support

Unlike a friend or family member, a life coach is there to help you in your personal growth journey by giving you true and honest feedback, free of any bias. A life coach will focus on providing input that will lead to your overall goals rather than simply trying to make you feel better (or sway you toward their personal agenda). Their advice will also be backed by relevant professional life experience gained from helping others with similar goals. They will be one of your biggest cheerleaders, celebrating every milestone on your journey and firmly putting you back on track when you’ve swerved astray.

In the process of working with your life coach, you’ll most likely be pushed to learn more about yourself than you would have normally. They’ll ask you questions you may not have thought of and provide you with deeper insight into your life and your aspirations. Here are just a few personal areas they can help you improve:

  • Work performance
  • Relationships
  • Work-life balance
  • Time management
  • Communication skills
Additionally, by helping you become more successful at meeting your goals and sticking to your plan, you’ll inherently become more confident in yourself and your journey. You may not become a life coach yourself, but you can learn the techniques that they use and apply them to your daily routine even after you’ve finished working with your coach.

4. Holds You Accountable

Let’s be honest, you might not reach your goals as often (or as quickly) as you would like—whether it be because you lose motivation, have trouble prioritizing, have limiting beliefs, or simply get distracted by the in’s and out’s of life. Hiring a life coach will help to ensure you get back on track if and when you falter or feel a lack of confidence.

Accountability is important to achieving dreams and goals. It means you are being held responsible for your own success. Rather than seeing it as burden or added stress, see accountability as a sense of ownership and pride over your life. When you share your goals out loud with your life coach, you will be held accountable for your goals and are more likely to make them a priority.

In fact, having a coach to check in with regularly will help keep you from straying too far from your goals at any given moment. They will know your roadmap as well as you do (if not even better), so you can rest assured that someone is there to help you stick to it.

The process of understanding yourself and what you want out of life—and setting goals to achieve that reality—can be done without a life coach for many people; however, a coach can help you attain those results faster.

It’s time to go after what you want in life. If you are struggling to achieve your goals, try hiring a life coach. Having a life coach will help you clarify your goals, create a solid plan to achieve them, support you along the way, and perform at your highest potential.