Category Archives for "Life Coaching"

The Online Coach – Life coaching online

Is coaching with the online coach right for me?

There are a lot of reasons why people come to a life coach. It's a $2 billion industry and growing. In the U.S., there is only one life coach for about every 15-20,000 people. Depending on where you live, there may not be a life coach near you. You may want to consider the online coach solution.

Here are some reasons to consider online coaching:

You have a busy schedule which makes seeing a life coach in person hard

Most of us are incredibly busy, juggling family, career, interests. An online coach allows us access to life-changing coaching at our convenience. Whether over Skype or telephone, a good coach should be able to help you drive more life satisfaction, create important goals, and stay on track.

Seeing a coach in-office means taking time, usually during the day. There may be a commute, parking, etc.

You're more comfortable in your home/office

Some people enjoy talking to the online coach curled up in a comfy chairs wearing their sweats. No big deal. The magic of technology makes this entirely possible. Coaching over the telephone or voice or video conference has become hugely popular.

Reducing anxiety by talking to your life coach in a comfortable environment is a good thing.

You can hire the life coach who is perfect for you.

There are all kinds of coaches out there - health coaches, wellness coaches, spiritual coaches, transformational coaches. You should be able to find one you resonate with and who specializes in what you want to work on.

You can have access to coaches all over the world.

Ultimately, it's about flexibility

Time, location, selection of coaches. What works for you? I believe that life coaching is one of the most powerful tools we have available for personal development. But you need to find a coach who resonates and works with you.

Some life coaches today work entirely online.

If you'd like to talk to me about life coaching, click here for next steps.

10 Best Life Coaching Blogs

Reading life coaching blogs is a great way to get resources or start your day. These sites can help you focus on the most important things in life, be happier, and start your day off right. They can change the way that you approach your whole life.

Relationship coaching blogs offer ways to deal with stressful relationships each day whether it be with our spouses, children, significant others or co-workers. With more than 85 percent of all relationships ending in failure, it is important to learn all that you can to keep your relationships healthy.

Life-coaching yoga blogs are also a great read because they help you focus on centering your mind and your body. Yoga is one of my favorite mind-body practices. It's great for your health

You can also read life-coaching inspirational blogs making sure that you have great examples to follow before you head out the door. When you are inspired by others you are more likely to make a positive impact in your corner of the world.

Top 10 Life-Coaching Blogs

Drawing on the inspiration of others is a great way to stay emotivated, here are the top 10 life-coaching blogs:

1. Read the Tiny Buddha

Lori Deschene draws on the knowledge of many other people for her Tiny Buddha blog. While this blog covers a lot of territory including yoga, minimalism, relationships and mindfulness, each post is designed to help you let go of the past and focus on creating a better future. Many Tiny Buddha inspirational posts feature writers from around the globe making it a terrific way to see the world as one connected place.

http://tinybuddha.com/

2 Learn from. In Pursuit of Happiness

Britt Reints bills herself as the Czar of Happiness. Her blog focuses on creating a lifestyle of happiness while doing more with less. She will encourage you to find happiness in your corner of the world by focusing on the things that matter most to you. You will find a variety of lifestyle advice on her blog with many relationship posts.

http://inpursuitofhappiness.net/blog/

3. See Meant to be Happy

Ken Wert believes that happiness should be found one day at a time. His blog is designed to help you create happiness where you are regardless of your circumstances. This high school teacher encourages you to see happiness as a product of your thoughts, so he focuses on encouraging you to create new thinking patterns.

http://meanttobehappy.com/

4. Study The Change Blog

Starting in 2007 when Peter Clemens found out that he was to be a father, he wanted to change the world one small step at a time so that his child could live in a better world. Now, he encourages others to tell their own stories of change, mainly through mindfulness, and share them on this blog. He still chimes in occasionally with wonderful thoughts of his own that are filled with practical advice enabling you to change your environment.

http://www.thechangeblog.com/

5. View The Skool of Life

Bradley Gauthier and Greg Hartle want to help you create a manual for your life. This blog will help you focus on finding meaningful work within yourself. When you do, you will be ready to celebrate in ways that you can never imagine.

http://theskooloflife.com/wordpress/

6. Discover Finding Happiness

Every business executive needs to take time to read Todd Patkin’s life coaching blog regularly. He recommends easily implemented changes in your life and company that will empower you and your employees to reach new heights. If you are not an executive, then you will find terrific ways to approach your boss about topics that will enable their workplace’s to be more productive.

http://www.toddpatkin.com/blog/

7. Appraise Marc and Angel Hacklife

Marc and Angel Chernoff have been providing the tools needed to identify and transform limiting beliefs on their blog readers sine 2006. With complete honesty, the couple tells you what they feel is working in their own lives and where they feel that they still need to grow. This blog encourages you to go on a journey through life with them.

http://www.marcandangel.com/

8. Check Out Mazzastick

Egalitarianism and karma are two powerful ideas found on Mazzastick. It is Justin Mazza’s goal to helps people stop negative, counterproductive, default programming in their own lives by empowering them with conscious evolution. Justin spends many hours researching each topic before delivering it to you in practical ways on his life coaching blog.

http://www.mazzastick.com/

9. Appreciate Marie Forleo

If you are tired of trying to live inside a box, then you need to read Marie Forleo’s blog as she believes that happiness starts when people quit trying to focus on just one part of their lives. On this blog, you will find a variety of topics ranging from fitness to hip-hop. By combining it all, this blog will encourage you to focus on everything that is important to you in life.

http://www.marieforleo.com/blog/

10. Live Bold and Bloom

Barrie Davenport encourages her readers to let go of the damage from negative relationships and step into living boldly. Each post on this site encourages the reader to take bold action. Barrie’s advice is radical, but it often takes a radical approach to empower change.

http://liveboldandbloom.com/

Finding time to read coaching blogs is not difficult when you make it a priority. When you naturally start feeling happier through applying the advice in these blogs, then you will find that you have more energy. Reading these blogs is an easy way to transform your corner of the world.

Midlife coaching not crisis

If you're in or approaching that age, now may be a perfect time to engage midlife coaching.

You may be stabilizing your career, in transition with your family, or looking to get more from the rest of your life.

With coaching, you could make the next years the best in your life.

Personally - I'm finding my middle years to be the most transformative and rewarding. I love what I do, I have a great family, and I'm able to give back.

Good coaching is proactive, solutions focused, and helps you build a future in alignment with your core values.

The Midlife Crisis is bunk

The midlife crisis - an emotional crisis involving identity that happens at some "middle" age. Thing is - it's not real.

Research shows that the "midlife crisis" is actually a myth. One can go through a crisis at any age, and there's no special.

If you find yourself in actual psychological crisis, a good coach is going to refer you to a therapist. Coaching isn't therapy.

But if you find yourself looking to enhance life satisfaction - hire a coach.

The Midlife opportunity

For most people, the middle years are where personality is stabilized. Your core values are set. Your goals are going to be in greater alignment with who you really are. And this is an area where great coaching flourishes.

Many people focus on contribution at this stage in life. What can you give back?

This can be an amazing opportunity. And, with the help of a coach, you'll be set up for success and satisfaction.

How to start midlife coaching

First things first: find a good coach.

Of course I'd love to talk to you about being your coach. You can click here for next steps to set up a conversation with me.

If I can't help you, I'll refer you to a coach who can.

But get yourself a good coach you resonate with.

When you talk with your coach take an attitude of curiosity and willingness to explore. This helps you to get the most from your coaching.

Here's to your great life!

Goal Planning Heads Up vs. Heads Down

As a life coach, I work with clients a lot on goal planning. Goals are gold. Good coaches have a toolbox full of strategies to create powerful, driving goals in alignment with their clients' true selves.

I'd like to share with you a couple of approaches to goal setting and planning. Each one is important in the process.

Your brain has areas which have different strengths. Let's capitalize on that.

“A goal properly set is halfway reached.”
~ Zig Ziglar

Heads up goal planning

Heads up goal planning is where you create your vision. Literally.

What's the big picture? What motivates and drives you? What's it going to look like, sound like, and feel like when you've created your goal?

Physically looking up can help you access the visual cortex of your brain.

You've got to start with the big picture. What's the big picture?

It could be something like, "I see myself in that corner office with my name on the door. I'm a vice president of my company, and it feels like a powerful achievement."

Really allow yourself to get into your senses. We're accessing our neurology here.

This is not the time for planning. We're not figuring out how to get there yet.

If you find yourself getting bogged down in details right now stop and yell, "silence critic!" in your best royal tone.

Here are a couple of questions you can ask yourself at this phase:

1. What does achieving this goal give me?
2. Why is it important?

These are big chunk visionary questions. Anything is OK - you don't need a lot of detail.

Heads down goal planning

OK - now that you've got a vision for what you want to create, it's time to chunk down a little.

Still not time for the critic. Keep that jerk out of your head for now.

Practice your yelling if you must.

It's time for heads-down planning.

Now that you have a visionary goal, it's cool to chunk down into smaller pieces.

Sometimes, with large goals, it can be hard to imagine what it's going to take to get to where you're going. That's fine.

Here's a secret technique (shhhh) to make a plan:

Work backwards.

Imagine you have your goal. What were you doing right before you got it? And what were you doing right before that.

Keep going until you get to today. Write down your chunks.

Now you even have a tool to estimate how long it's going to take to get your goal. Just look at your chunks and figure out how long each one of them is going to take.

You can also ask yourself what skills and resources you need to acquire for each chunk.

Now your goal is essentially planned.

If you'd like help with this process, access to other powerful goal planning tools, or someone to keep you on track - let's talk.