"What Is...?" Wednesday

A Life Coach

Life Coaching is different from consulting, mentoring, advice, therapy, or counseling. The coaching process addresses specific personal projects, business successes, general conditions and transitions in the client's personal life, relationships or profession by examining what is going on right now, discovering what your obstacles or challenges might be and choosing a course of action to make your life be what you want it to be.


To put it plainly, as Lynn Grabowski, an excellent Life Coach whom I have had the pleasure of working with recently, puts it this way "A Life Coach is someone who works with their client as their peer in a co-creative relationship to reach a specific goal. It's different than a therapist, in that you assume your client is inherently perfect and doesn't need fixed...rather, they already have all the answers and you, as a coach, work with them to draw those answers out."

Lynn works primarily with women who have lost their sense of identity due to being mom, wife, etc for a length of time. Most coaches, including herself, are often willing and able to work with other life goals and issues outside of their specialties as well, especially when people feel a real rapport with their coach after a trial session. 


Take myself for example...I speak with Lynn often, usually through Twitter but started up a conversation last week concerning Life Coaching. She very graciously offered me a sample of her coaching techniques, I'm sure most of you are aware that I suffer from a couple different issues...so I said sure!


I suffer from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) but PTSD does not happen with one defining moment...it's gradual and happens over time until there is a "straw that broke the camel's back" moment. I reached mine nearly eight years ago. So the area I chose to look at was my life in general and from there we picked out three goals. It's very easy and like she says, you indeed hold all the answers within yourself, they just need to be coaxed out. I had my "Ah Ha!" moment when she asked a very specific question of "What holds me back?" and I immediately answered "fear." 


My "fear" stems from a time in my life where it was so insanely troubling and stressful that "I may lose everything I hold important at any moment"... but that is no longer the case anymore, so that "fear" I held on to for so long is no longer serving me and once that dawned in my head, I felt as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. It's so strange that I wondered why hadn't I put that together before but it was so defining and resonating, I suddenly felt like my own super hero.

Most of Lynn's clients usually have one big goal, with several smaller goals to work through to get to it, so for some, getting through those first smaller goals is a success because at first even those seemed unsurmountable. One may have a big goal and realize through coaching that it's not what's right for them and even that is a form of success.The types of successes vary from person to person, some may come back for a refresher session or two to tackle a specific challenge. She considers it a success when her clients leave with the tools to continue reaching any goal or challenge that arises.


Lynn's website is under construction at the moment but I encourage you to contact her and try it out for yourself, I was astounded at the simple information that I was able to glean from myself! You can contact Lynn at her email, lynnlifecoach@gmail.com or on Twitter @sheepmama

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