Personal Coaching
Personal coaching (also referred to as Life Coaching)
might be most easily described as customized self help books and tapes,
brought to life.
Coaching is the equivalent of attending a motivational
seminar where the speaker only talks about you and how to make the
most of your gifts and talents. Coaching creates an environment
where you stay positive and charged up--not for a day or two--but
week after week.
Ask 10 different coaches why this burgeoning profession
is coming into prominence and you're likely to get 10 different
answers. If we take a long view of where society has taken us as
individuals over the past 100 years, the need for and benefits of
personal coaching start to become apparent.
Decline of the Family
At the turn of the last century, we were dependent upon one another
for our very existence. In spite of our pioneering spirit--or maybe
because of the enormous risks we were taking in blazing trails across
this new country--we needed each other for our most basic of needs.
As we skip through the subsequent decades and observe
the morphic changes of society, we notice a gradual disconnection
of the tight bonds previously necessary to survive. The traditional
family unit shrinks from the supportive environment of multigenerations
living under one roof to the scarce reality of single parents barely
able to make ends meet... both financially and emotionally.
The answer to the question 'Why Coaching?' could be
a simple one. It may be our attempt at partial restoration of the
safe environment we once enjoyed as an interdependent family unit.
Sense of Community
Even if multigenerational families under one roof are not the answer
in today's society, you'd have to agree the pendulum certainly has
swung the other way just a little too far. We interact with grocery
checkers, bank tellers, and convenience store clerks without so
much as looking them in the eye.
We see neighbors who have lived near us for months
or even years and we don't even know their names. This conscious
disconnect is often justified by the pace of our lives and, ironically,
the needs of our family. This fast food equivalent of Family and
Community, with fries on the side, is not nourishing our body, nor
our mind, much less our soul.
We have read the self help books and listened to the
self help tapes. Unfortunately, they have been of marginal assistance,
or at best, less than we had hoped. We can pat ourselves on the
back at our efforts to improve ourselves and admire those titles
stacked in our bookcase.
If we are honest, however, we must admit they are
now more 'shelf help' than self-help. In the dark recesses of our
mind we recognize, we cannot do this alone.
Fortunate Few
For years, serious athletes, actors, and politicians have all used
personal coaches to help maximize their skills and abilities. These
professionals are often at the top of their game, yet wouldn't think
of 'going it alone.' Many of us are now recognizing the value of
this unique relationship and are adapting it to a personal level.
Personal Coaches, or Life Coaches, are more than a
friend with whom to share problems. They are a sounding board for
solutions to the challenges we face on a daily basis. They are mentors
in some cases, cheerleaders in others. Part consultant, part family.
Coaches unleash the power of partnership.
With a coach, we do more than we would do on our own,
go further and faster toward our goals, and take ourselves more
seriously. We have an accountability partner who shares our best
interest and keeps us moving forward. Personal coaching is about
taking action and making things happen.
Taking It Up A Notch
Left to our own devices, we can often justify our average existence
with the thought we are coping well considering all that the world
is throwing at us. A Personal Coach helps us catch what we need,
deflect the unnecessary, and totally disregard the irrelevant.
We don't have to do it alone, but we are challenged
to take responsibility for ourselves and to take action on our own
behalf. Former Dallas Cowboys coach, Tom Landry, sums it up this
way, 'A coach is someone who gets you to do what you don't want
to do, so you can be who you want to be.'
The time for personal coaching is now. The reasons
are the ones bouncing around in your head at this very moment. The
question now becomes, are you ready for the rewards that come with
taking the game of life to the next level?
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