What is life coaching?
Life coaching is a partnership between you, the client, and your professional life coach. Through one-on-one conversations, your life coach will partner with you to empower your discovery. Unlike therapy, which focuses on healing, life coaching focuses on how to make changes in the present to get to a future version of yourself that you envision. Your life coach’s job is to listen deeply and ask you powerful questions around aspects of yourself that you are unable to see from an outside perspective. The goal is to help you make empowered choices that fit your life, not the coach’s!
What does a session look like?
Each session is typically around 50-60 minutes long. You will start by establishing a clear goal for that day for what you want to understand better, resolve, or plan for. You will decide with your coach the level of structure or flexibility you need for your conversation that day, and what a successful outcome of the conversation will look like. After setting the session goals, your coach will ask you questions to help you dig deep for clarity around your values, strengths, and limitations. Your coach will ask you to consider a variety of perspectives that you may have not considered before. Sometimes, your coach may share a specific activity or tool that can help you better understand yourself around a particular topic, or introduce a creative thinking tool that can help you break past mental blocks you are experiencing. The final portion of the session will focus on helping you build a well-designed action plan that includes accountability.
What types of things will we discuss during a session?
Life coaching is effective no matter what areas of your life you are looking to grow in. When you experience breakthroughs and successes in one area of your life, it becomes easier to apply your growth to other areas of your life. Most people prefer to work towards a mid-term goal with their life coaching package. In your first sessions, your life coach will help you define where you would like to be or what you would like to have accomplished by the conclusion of your coaching package. From there, for each coaching session, you will be able to select a topic of conversation that will bring you the most personal growth that day. It might be an “ordinary” challenge you are facing, such as a problem that has arisen in the everyday busyness of life. During such sessions, your coach can help you make the connections between that topic and your larger goals you are working toward.
Other times, clients prefer to work with a more structured approach for session topics and will pre-select with their coach what areas they wish to work on throughout their coaching package, such as limiting beliefs, motivation, personal mission, navigating relationships, and more. Essentially – you pick the topic for your sessions! Communicate openly with your life coach about what you need, because their job is to help you grow in the way that best suits you. With life coaching, you are in the driver’s seat; your coach is the co-pilot helping you navigate and helping you align your discovery with your longer-term growth goals.
Will my life coach give me advice?
It is common for many people who are beginning life coaching to want to ask their life coach for advice or suggestions. While your coach may offer you an idea now and then, they are more likely to suggest brainstorming together possible solutions. Life coaching is about exploring who you need to be and what works and doesn’t for your life, so your coach will offer you that gentle nudge to find the answer that you have buried deep down rather than impose their own beliefs or lifestyle. Words of Life Coaching believes that everyone is created uniquely and has their own handcrafted journey to follow. Your life coach will not guide you to the “right” answer or solution, but rather empower you to discern and step more fully into your own path.
Are the sessions online or in-person?
Life Coach Carla Reyes primarily schedules sessions on Zoom. In-person meetups in the Northeast Ohio area may be requested for an additional fee.