Life coaching is relatively new to many people and how to find the right coach can seem like a bit of a mystery. The reality is that this is all about connection. The right coach for you is going to be someone with the expertise and experience you need for the areas that you most want to focus on. But the real gift of coaching is a coach you trust, who feels like the right fit and that you have a good connection with. Not every coach is going to be right for everyone – that’s why most of us offer a free intro call. The intro call is where you can see if that connection and trust is there. And also ask any questions you might have.
Do I choose a life coach near me?
There is no right or wrong answer to this. I do both in-person and online sessions. But there is a lot of online coaching today and it’s a great way to get the support and help that you need in a way that works for your schedule. Online coaching is incredibly powerful – in fact some people find it better than in-person because you can be comfortable in your own home. So, the answer to “do I choose a life coach near me?” is really that this is an incredibly individual choice. It depends on whether you’ll find it easier to focus in person – or whether you’re just going to add more stress to your life having to travel for sessions.
How to find the right coach- area of expertise
Obviously I am a resilience coach and so that is my area of expertise. It’s an area that covers an incredibly broad range of different things. My resilience model as a resilience coach is this:
- Mindset + habits work to create resilience through optimism, tenacity, confidence, self-belief and self-esteem.
- Creating nervous system flexibility to stop the disruption of fight/flight/freeze
- Unwinding the impact of the past so that you’re not continuously repeating the same situations, people and mistakes (not resilient to be stuck in the past).
- Emotional awareness and better emotional regulation. Because our emotions are the things that usually disrupt our resilience and ability to be consistent – or to live well and be ourselves.
- Authenticity work, whether that’s defining your values, focusing on your identity statements, looking at purpose and passion – because these things are the foundation of being adaptable and flexible in life. With a firm foundation you can soar, as well as just survive.
Do you want a life coach or a therapist?
This can be a pretty simple question to answer. I’d say the core difference to note here is this: therapy tends to be focused on the past, looking back and understanding what happened etc. With a life coach you may well find that things from the past come up (I specific look at unwinding the impact of the past because a lot of our programming is coming from childhood etc) but you’re not focused on the past. Instead, with a life coach, the question is “how does this resonate for me right now – and what do I need to do to move past it.”
When it comes to how to find the right coach, it’s always a good idea to do some research but the best indication of whether someone is right for you is going to be how you feel when you speak to them. With that in mind let’s book in an intro call and you can see whether I am the right person to help you.
