Pushing clients to achieve their maximum potential is at the heart of what we do at Executive Coach International. Life Coaching has been gaining popularity among working adults in the past few years. It is a profession that is very different from those of consulting, mentoring, counselling, or therapy. The process actually helps clients with addressing personal goals, achieving business success or helping to ease with the transitional phase of a person’s life. A life coach also helps the client discover potential obstacles or challenges and helps him/her plan out a course of action to mitigate such challenges.
But why hire one? Is it even necessary? There are immense benefits when you hire a coach, but looking beyond benefits, in some ways it is imperative that you have a coach before you think about taking that next big step in your career/life.
Coaching helps speed up your journey to success
It’s a no brainer. Having a coach speeds it all up because the coach has the necessary experience needed to get you in the right direction. You do not have to be stalling over the nitty-grittys of a plan when there is a coach involved. Coaches don’t give advice, they walk the walk along with you! A business coach might help you to do something so out of the blue that it could revolutionize the way you think about business as a whole. That’s what you get for opening up to a professional who brings an influx of new ideas and experiences — a sure fire way to achieve your targets in a shorter span of time.
The Trial and Error method (on your own) is way too time consuming
You will be tempted to do things by yourself but as mentioned, your lack of experience will likely be a hindrance for you to carry out your plan of action step-by-step. The trial and error method is way too painful in terms of losing out on time and finance if there’s no proper sounding board who is trained to help you discover your blindspots. Friends don’t count — they lack objectivity, active listening skills and incisive questioning abilities — to bring out the best in you. Hiring a coach will help you alleviate any possible time and money wastage which is so detrimental to those who are starting out with a business, or plan to get fit within a certain timeframe. The common excuse is that people don’t need help because they will “eventually figure it out”. Well the reply to that would be that if you could have done it on your own, you would already have what you wanted by now, or are at least well on your way achieving to your goal(s).
The best always have coaches
The late Bill Campbell, one of the most influential people in Silicon Valley, was CEO of Intuit and Chairman of its board until his death earlier this year. He was a coach and advisor to the biggest names in technology like Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos to name a few. Oprah Winfrey, one of the most influential women in showbiz also had a coach – celebrated author and poet, the late Maya Angelou. What we can learn from this is that there is no way a person can person can push himself beyond his limitations without having some sort of coach to do that. Realize that the best out there were average Joes and had to rely on training and coaching to be at the level they are at today. The same applies to life coaching.
The best investment you can make is with yourself
The ongoing question is what is best to invest your money with. Real estate? Stocks? You would be surprised to know that the answer is to invest in yourself. Apart from learning a new skill, the best thing you can is get yourself a life coach who is experienced in helping his/her clients achieve the best results within a stipulated timeframe. The results will be clearly noticeable as compared to when you were without one. A coach who dedicates a certain number of hours to you will definitely help you go a long way.