Guest Post
by Tammy Tkachuk
More and more people are hearing the terms personal coach or life coach. There have been newspaper articles and
professional articles written on the subject.
Several people have asked me, “what is a life or personal coach and how
is personal coaching different from psychotherapy?” Until recently, personal coaching has been
confined to corporations where it is known as executive coaching or executive
consulting. Today personal coaching has
found its way into the public domain. Perhaps
personal coaching is just what you’ve been waiting for to help you enrich your
already satisfying life.
Coaching
has been around for a long time. It is
usually associated with sports, e.g., tennis coach, golf coach, track coach,
football coach or baseball coach, to name a few. You want to get better at something, whom do
you call? A coach. You want to become more physically fit, you
call a personal trainer. Just as there
are athletic coaches, voice coaches, and acting coaches, there are personal
coaches. Personal coaches, sometime referred to as life coaches, are usually
professionally trained mental health practitioners, who, in most instances,
have been successful in their professional and personal life.
In
addition to their professional training, they have developed special skills in
helping individuals develop their potential and fulfill their goals. Within the past years the practice of
personal coaching has mushroomed.
Previously many people sought psychotherapy for personal growth not just
for treatment of emotional problems or mental illness. Others wanted some other form of assistance
without the association to mental illness carried by psychotherapy. Now people can turn to personal coaches whose
focus is on growth and development of all areas of one’s life rather than on
internal stress and emotional conflict.
Coaching and Psychotherapy
What is
the difference between coaching and psycho-therapy? Coaching is not therapy. Personal coaches don’t work on “issues” or
delve into the past. Nor do they deal
much with understanding human behavior. Coaches do not focus on resolving past
traumas that affect personality development nor do they try to change
personality structures.
A
personal coach focuses on:
• Helping
people set better goals.
• Asking
their clients to do more than they would on their own.
• Helping
their clients to focus better so as to product results more quickly.
•
Providing clients with the tools, support, and structure to accomplish more.
Whereas
psychotherapy focuses on the past and the present, coaching focuses on the
present and future. The personal coach
maintains a focus on the goals that the client decides s/he would like to
achieve. The collaborative effort
propels the individual to continually move toward the goal. In psychotherapy the assumption is that there
is something wrong that gets in the way of a person’s functioning that needs
fixing.
In
coaching the assumption that there is nothing wrong with the client, but the
client wants an even better life. In
psychotherapy the main focus is on the client’s internal world. In coaching the focus is on the client’s
entire life including health, relationships, career, spirituality, etc., and
how it all fits together.
Personal
coaches help people develop a balanced life.
They do this through strengthening their client’s personal
foundation. Part of one’s personal
foundation is recognizing and clarifying one’s core values. Most of us seldom take the time to delineate
and clarify our values, those beliefs that are at the center of our
belief. Often we act in ways that our
contrary to our internalized values and we end up feeling uncomfortable,
guilty, or even ashamed. On exploration
we may find that we acting in ways that are contrary to our own value
system. A coach can help you explore
your values and assist in developing a set of goals and actions that comport
with this value system such that you feel in synch with yourself.
Coaches
have no agenda but that of their clients.
It is one of the few relationships where the client’s agenda is the only
agenda that matters. Personal coaches
want to assist you in actualizing your agenda on your terms. The objective of the coach is to open new
possibilities. The attention in coaching
is solely on you and your agenda.
How can I
know whether I need a coach or a therapist? Generally people have turned to a
psychotherapist when they experience psychological pain that interferes with
the conduct of their everyday life. They may experience anxiety, depression,
sexual dysfunction, lack of identity,
obsessions, or compulsive rituals.
Coaching
begins where psychotherapy leaves off.
The coach assumes that the client is well-functioning and is facing a
roadblock or finding it difficult to get over the next mountain to greater
fulfillment. People turn to coaches when
their life is going well. Usually they
are high-functioning people who want to expand their lives, their businesses,
and their general outlook. They tend to
be successful people who have a vision that they could go beyond where they
are, but feel that they would like someone to work with them to achieve their
goals. They seek a coach to accelerate
their growth or maximize an opportunity.
Some people choose a coach to help in the short-term for a specific task
or project, while others engage a coach to restructure their life.
About the Author
Tammy Tkachuk, is a life coach and certified counsellor. She has experience in a wide variety of settings and populations. She is passionate about helping people achieve their fitness goals, and de-cluttering their homes. She believes that everyone has the potential to live their best life, it just might take some coaching to get there. For more information, please visit www.transitionlifecoaching.ca
