Male, person-centred counsellor, psychotherapist and coach, with special interest in male anger issues.
Life Coaching
"I know people who have a lot of excuses. They blame their lives on exterior things. Frequently I hear "waiting" stories from people who are waiting for life to happen. They are waiting to get married or waiting for the right job. Then there's the big wait, waiting for their kids to grow up. Then they wait for retirement. All they have left after that is the wait for the cemetary. They have never lived or experienced their own lives. They have locked themselves into a little box because of conditioning that has been put on them by other people."
- Sun Bear, et al. (1989).
Life coaching has become a currently popular phenomena, but what is it and how might it help any of us?
The above image strikes me as being typical of the kind of image which we associate with life coaching. It's cool and it looks inspiring, but it doesn't really look like anything that relates to my life. It looks like the kind of thing I would expect to come away from a seminar with, feeling full of inspiration and hope. But then, as normal life gradually crept back into place, it would go on a pile of other stuff I'd keep wanting to look at, until eventually, it ended up in the bin. This doesn't mean that it's not useful, cleverly put together and well designed. It is. All of that. It just doesn't very well connect to the reality of the kind of work I have had to do on myself in the pursuit of life coaching.
The quote from Sun Bear, however, feels a lot closer to something I can relate to. Waiting, or putting things off until "tomorrow", when tomorrow can end up being years in the future.
Life coaching can be about a lot of things, but for me, it is primarily about acknowledging that we have some goals in life, and facilitating our sometimes obscured capacity and potential to achieve these goals. By pinpointing our goals, aspirations and ambitions, we can begin the journey of understanding how we might move ourselves closer to them.
Whatever your goals, there are no judgements here. I don't know what's 'right' for you. It's not even about what's 'right' or what's 'wrong', but about finding out what really works for each individual.
Working together, we can look at your career aspirations, and help you better understand aspects of your relationships, both professional and personal. We can facilitate the courage to access your own confidence to face possibly life-changing decisions, whilst challenging the beliefs that seem to get in the way of our achievements.
Sound like a lot? Then let me remind you of the old question about how you go about eating an elephant?
One bite at a time.
With coaching, there can often seem like there is much to do, but by clearly knowing where we want to go, and by taking it one bite at a time, we can start by at least aiming in our chosen direction. It is sometimes surprising how, when we know what we want, it can feel as though everything is conspiring to get us there. Similarly, when we are not clear about what we want, it can feel as though everything is conspiring against us.
I have lived and worked in 6 different countries, each with quite different cultures, and in each there are similar sayings for the simple life truths about the nature of personal success. The truth is certainly out there, but sometimes we just need a little help connecting with it.
Feeling like your life isn't working out the way you think it should? Get in contact and work towards the person you are, rather than the person you've learned to settle for.
© 2021 Odin Waters Counselling