A life coach is a person who, based on a person’s current life situation and values, helps create direction and guide them on their way of meeting positive goals in their personal and professional life. They provide people with the necessary support and tools to be able to complete every step along the way. In fact, there are around 23,823 life coaches in the US alone.
The reason why life coaching works is that a coach often has an overall perspective on an individual’s situation, which makes it easier for them to see where they need support to reach the desired results.
Life coaching encourages clients to discover themselves, create a vision of their future, and use the life coach’s expertise to resolve transitions or issues that have caused a standstill or crossroads in their relationships or careers. In addition, it helps clients achieve meaningful goals, improves communication, and helps them live the life they desire.
Below we share six key features that are essential in making the life coaching process more effective and helping life coaches deliver excellent results.
Insightful Question Sheets
Question sheets are a great way to start a life coaching program. This can help the client explore their situation and themselves in detail, both personally and professionally. This tool is a valuable resource for life coaches since it provides important information about clients’ mindsets, behaviors, attitudes, and ambitions.
Asking questions is an important coaching skill, and by listening to the answers, coaches can get an all-important helicopter view of their client’s behavior and lives. Then, they can help them set goals, brainstorm and plan their actions accordingly.
Robust Software Tools
Life coaches who want to succeed should consider using the latest technology. Selecting the best life coaching software will allow them to easily track and record client opinions, experiences, and roadblocks, obtaining a clear image of the client’s overall progress.
With this type of software, life coaches can easily organize their clients’ sessions, keep track of habits and goals, and manage their time efficiently. This tool also makes it possible for life coaches to manage all aspects of their business in a single, easy-to-use platform. All in all, this way, they can deliver coaching programs and manage clients and groups, while saving precious time, reducing hassle, and avoiding feelings of frustration.
Learning Process Worksheets
Learning process worksheets are an excellent way to gain insight into specific areas of a client’s life by posing simple questions. Based on the answers, the worksheet will then lead them to action steps.
The learning process worksheet includes exercises such as ‘daily successful habits’, ‘personal value finder’, and the SMART goal-setting questionnaire. There are many examples of a learning process that involves a series of questions that gradually build the learning process, which leads to undertaking specific steps to improve that area of their life.
Active Listening
Coaches usually spend most of their time listening to their clients. Active listening is more than simply hearing and understanding speech. A life coach must focus their entire attention on the client and make sure that they are not easily distracted and do not allow their mind to wander while they are working with a client.
Active listening also requires that they look beyond verbal language. Sometimes clients don’t share as much information about their problems as they should. It could be that they are embarrassed by something or confused about the impact their personal life would have on their professional one. A life coach must therefore always be on the lookout for hidden clues that tell them what’s going on.
Visualizing Exercises
Visualizing exercises help clients to understand and clarify the different aspects of their lives, both present and future. ‘Wheel of life’ and ‘life map’ are two examples of visual exercises that help clients gauge patterns in their lives, inspire them to come up with novel ideas for improving areas that require attention, and gain a more creative and rational outlook on their life journey.
Coaching Quizzes
Quizzes can be a great way for life coaches to determine where a client is at in their lives. Such fun but effective quizzes can be used to increase self-awareness and see how satisfied clients are with various aspects of life, whether it’s their personal life, career, or their health. They can also help them see how life coaching can help their motivation, and their willingness to tackle their challenges and achieve their goals.
Final Thoughts
Certain features can give life coaches that extra boost they need to further their coaching engagement and deliver excellent results. The ones we mentioned above can be used to inject new energy into a well-established program and pave way for exploring different solutions to challenges, and encourage clients to actively pursue their dreams and achieve their goals.
