Understanding Life Coaching The Belief of Coaching The belief held in coaching is based on the understanding that each person has the answers inside of them to all of life’s problems. Getting it out and evaluating it is sometimes a difficulty. That is where coaching comes in since it often requires special conditions to expose and bring these answers to the surface. The Problem Our daily pressures to produce, accomplish, or achieve usually interferes with our ability to evaluate our inner thoughts, information, and the answers we need. Coupled with the bustle, well-worn routines, and comfortable relationships, we typically fail to see things differently than what we have always seen. Life Coaching This is a process of assisting people to draw out from within the answers to their problems that often lay dormant, unrealized, because of the problems they daily face. As has often been said, it is difficult to focus on your assignment to drain the swamp when you are up to your hips in alligators. Life Coaching helps you stay focused amid the daily crisis or pressures that consume or guide your life. The Relationship Coaching is a powerful partnership, and a unique relationship, between two capable individuals. The person seeking coaching because he or she wants to improve their life in some way, such as finding a better job, solidifying a career, improving relationships, being better at some goal from parenting to golf, from managing to relaxation on a balmy beach. In some way, they seek to achieve balance in their lives, reduce the stresses they experience, and overcome obstacles that keep them from achieving their goals and objectives. A Different Perspective Life Coaching is a special relationship that provides an outside perspective, unconditional encouragement, and a safe, judgment-free environment for you to experiment with new ways of thinking, being, and acting. What Coaching is Not Coaching is not counseling nor therapy. The Life coach holds no underlying assumptions that something is wrong with the client; that they are "broken" in some way, and need to be fixed or healed. The Life Coach does not try to diagnose and treat a client's condition. The reason this is not done, is that a Life Coach believes thoroughly that the client is intact, wise and resourceful—whether the client realizes it or not. The coach understands the need to listen and observe the client with the goal of helping the client uncovering new meaning and direction. The coach serves as an objective, equal partner who co-creates the relationship with the client to help them design a different, better way of life. While so-called counseling and therapy professionals take great pride in remaining emotionally detached from their clients, the Life Coach openly celebrate their client's victories, empathize with their challenges, and share relevant personal experiences that may help the client move forward in their goals. How Coaching Works You, the client, bring to the coaching process your specific topic or challenge area—what is called the agenda. Everything in the relationship is about you: your ideas, your victories, your challenges, your commitment to positive change, your authentic self. Your Life Coach immediately becomes focused on all these things. They listen to your words, vocal inflection, energy level, thoughts, emotions, and actions. They hear what you say and what you don't say. As they listen, they ask direct and meaningful questions designed to help you listen to yourself more closely and discover the truths you already know about yourself and your life. The job of a Life Coach is not to give advice or solve your problems for you—but to help you uncover your own wisdom, cultivate your authentic self, and identify concrete ways to meet your goals. Most importantly, they hold you accountable for the action steps you decide to take and make a commitment to accomplish. What to Expect from the Initial Session At the beginning of our coaching process, you and your Life Coach will go through a comprehensive ingestive session together where the Coach learns about your background, your goals, values, priorities, attitudes, strengths, and obstacles. Through this, you will come to an understanding of your expectations as the Life coach answers any questions and addresses any fears or reservations you may have. Most importantly, the Life Coach will find out how you want to be coached—whether you move quickly or slowly, are able to grasp new ideas as they are discussed or need time to digest them, and whether your people interests for contact or isolation are interfering or helping in the process. All of this is to assist you to find out new things about yourself, or to assist you in understanding yourself in a different way geared to accomplishing your goals and objectives. What to Expect from Subsequent Sessions After the initial session, your Life Coach will begin weekly coaching calls. You'll complete a coaching session preparation form that documents your agenda for the week, along with victories, challenges, and anything else you want to talk about. What to Expect During the Coaching Process Some of the feelings often experienced during the coaching process are: • Initial fears, doubts, or uncertainties about your ability to change or the effectiveness of coaching. • A rush of energy, motivation, and even elation at identifying long-neglected needs and breaking through barriers. • A sense of frustration or even futility (often at around 6-8 weeks) when you've passed through the initial excitement of coaching and realize that permanent change doesn't come quickly or easily, which is all part of the process being worked through with your Life Coach. • A growing unease resulting from friends, loved ones, acquaintances claiming you are wasting your time with life coaching. • An occasional aggravation at your Life Coach for not "supplying the answers" or when you are held accountable for things you may not want to do—even when you agreed to them. • An elation at reaching a plateau you thought was beyond your reach. • A growing confidence in your ability to change yourself and your environment. • A new ability to recognize your own wisdom and begin to self-coach. A New Approach to Problem Solving and Achievement Coaching is many things: it can be explorative, sensible, emotional, mysterious and miraculous, and extremely informative. Like any relationship, coaching is unique to the individuals engaged in the process. The real power of coaching is how it focuses on you, the goals and objectives you bring, want or need, and the active expansion of the relationship—all for the express purpose of helping you be the best person that you want to be. |  | ||||||
Porter Montague during one of his daily Life Coach coaching sessions from the privacy of his office | |||||||
LIFE COACHING TESTIMONIALS"I learned more about myself in a matter of hours than in ten years of therapy." --Henrietta Y. "What a marvelous experience. I started the initial session with a lot of concerns, even wondering if it was worth the effort. But in the end, it was not only worth the time and money, but worth all the introspection that allowed me to realize my potential and eliminate the blocks that were keeping me from achieving my life's desires." --Yuri I. "I never thought setting and achieving goals could be so much fun. I really enjoyed the experience of working with Porter. He is an exceptional individual with keen insights into life's many experiences." --Jake M. "I had a horrible time make presentations and speaking in front of groups which my job required. Thanks to Porter's Life Coaching ability, I came to realize what was keeping me from enjoying my work and now I love it." --Hannah C. "I never knew what was keeping me from enjoying my family and relaxation time until now. Your Life Coaching has been invaluable and helped me realize what I really wanted in life and what was trolly important to me--and my career was not at the top of my list." --Tommy L. "I had no idea what to expect...Life Coaching is not a concept in New Zealand where I live. But after a few hours on the telephone over the first week, I realized how important it was for me to understand how I have the ability within me to figure out any problem and solve it, and to achieve any goal." --Connie F. "It was really a struggle at first. I know I fought the idea that I could solve all my own problems, and probably frustrated Porter to death, but he hung in there and helped me over the difficulties and showed me how to draw from within my own ability to perceive problems and understand solutions." --Harry P. "As Porter kept telling me, once a problem is identified and the blocks involved, a solution is a simple matter--it is, of course, implementing the solution that takes some effort because nobody is going to do it or can do it for you." -- Perry G. "What the mind can perceive can be achieved was really brought home to me during the early sessions. I realized right away that I had been my own worst enemy, always seeing the negative and deep down inside, believing nothing I tried would ever work. What a fantastic thing it is to know that I have the ability to do anything I choose, become anything I want, and accomplish any goal. I am, as Porter kept telling me, the Captain of my own Soul. Thanks, my friend." --George M. "Thanks to you, I am leading a very fruitful life and enjoying each day beyond measure. Thank you, thank you, thank you." --Sherice J. "How is it possible I lived for over 50 years without realizing I could accomplish whatever I put my mind to? What a rehabilitating feeling to now be able to realize my dreams." --Kathy A. "As a single mom of three youngsters, I was having a very difficult time making ends meet and keeping my wits about me. Now, thanks to Porter showing me how to tap my own inner strengths and knowledge, I know where I want to go and how I am going to get there." --Amy C. "Thanks for all your insights and helping me see my potential." --Abby K. 'I have never gone through so much frustration, self-pity, and self-awareness in my life. At times I wanted to shoot you. But you stuck with me and I stuck with the process, and finally came to understand what it was you were trying to get me to see about myself and my inner abilities. Wow! What a revelation to come to realize that I am in charge of myself and no one else." --Ralph O. "I would never have believed it! Porter showed me how to get to my own awareness of my interests so quickly, because he got right to the heart of the matter, I am now experiencing great success in my new career." --Shalone W. "I was never so challenged in my entire life, but what fun it was to meet the challenges I made for myself and achieve beyond their borders." --Maxine S. "I enjoyed the experience so much, I am now pursuing the role of being a Life Coach myself." --Corinth J. "What can I say? Porter is simply the greatest!" --Shaquee T. "Thanks to you, I can now find time to spend with my family and see a ballgame and have some fun without feeling guilty. It was what I always wanted to do, but never knew how to do it." --Tyrell J. "My teenager and I used to have such horrendous knock-down, drag-out arguments and it was ruining our family. But now I am able to listen more and understand and it has brought us closer together thanks to your coaching." --Kandra K. "What a difference Life Coaching has made in my life. Thank you from the bottom of my heart." --Annie H. "By the time we met over the phone, I had spent over 20 years as a professional student. I do believe I learned more in our few hours of sessions than in my entire educational career. If you need any recommendations to how good you are at Life Coaching, just have them call me." --Hansen B. | |||||||
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