Life coach basics: What to expect when you start working with a life coach

If you’ve never worked with a coach before, you might be wondering just what are some life coach basics. What is a life coach, anyway? What do they do, and what can I expect if I hire one? 

Those are all great questions, and that’s why today, I’d like to share with you 3 basic truths about working with a life coach.

1. You are always in control.

A life coach – a good one, anyway – will never make you feel uncomfortable, or do or say things you don’t want to do. They will never force you to answer a question, pressure you to take actions you don’t want to, or in any way make you feel threatened or pressured.

Why is that?

Because life coaching is built on the foundation that you are the master of your own life. You are in charge, 100% of the time.

In fact, it’s not holding that belief that often makes us need life coaches in the first place.

What the heck do I mean by that?

Let me tell you a quick story about one of my first clients, Marie. Marie was a kind, caring soul who’d left her career in finance to raise her three kids, and now was trying to get back into the workforce – but was finding it difficult. A lot had changed since she left, and she felt her resume wasn’t enough to land her a job in such a competitive field.

We began to work together, digging into her beliefs about herself, her goals, and what she wanted. And in the middle of our first session, something surprising came out: that she didn’t even want to go back into finance.

Marie shocked herself by saying it out loud. She hadn’t even realized it until that moment.

But now that she’d said it, she knew it was true. And she understood it in a whole new light.

It turned out that her husband wanted her to go back to that world. Sure, she’d wanted to a decade ago – but not anymore. And she hadn’t even recognized that in herself. So now, with her husband acting as if she was still the same person she was when their kids were little, she’d just gone along with what was expected of her.

“You know what?” she said to me. “I actually want to be a teacher.”

Marie had forgotten what it was like to listen to her inner compass. It wasn’t that her husband was trying to force her – it was that he honestly thought she missed her job as a financial advisor. She had lost her sense of being in touch with her own intuition, her own drive.

The good news is, even if you haven’t listened to your intuition in decades, it never leaves you. It’s always there. You can always tune back in to your inner guidance system – and it always knows what’s best for you.

Often, when we get off-track in life, it’s because we’ve stopped listening to that. Often, we go along with what other people want for us, silencing our inner wisdom in the meantime. Or, if we don’t check in with our core values and gut feelings, we assume we still want the same thing we did ten years ago.

That’s why a life coach will always honor your authority and your wisdom. Only you know the answers. It’s your coach’s job to help you find them.

2. Your life coach is not your personal cheerleader.

Now, knowing that you have the answers within you doesn’t mean your life coach is there to simply be your cheerleader. They’re not there just to smile and nod and tell you you’re doing great.

Sure, they should cheer you on when you are doing great – but they’re also there to call you out sometimes. To shine a light on the ways you might be sabotaging yourself, or tricking yourself into believing something that’s not serving you. To work with you to uncover what’s holding you back. To strategize ways that you can move forward.

Your life coach should validate you every step of the way, always honoring your truth and your feelings. They will also push you to dip a toe outside your comfort zone – because that’s where growth happens.

Your coach’s job is to make you feel safe enough to be honest, but they’re not there to coddle you or baby you or accommodate your BS. A good life coach is one who will help you challenge yourself to look at your life in new ways, take (calculated) risks, and try new things.

3. Mindset is key.

So now you might be wondering, how does a life coach both validate and push you? How do they honor your truth and your feelings and authority, while guiding you to make the changes you want to make in your life?

There are many different types of coaches, and they all have their own philosophies, methods, and styles. But what pretty much all life coaches have in common is this: mindset is key.

That’s how you make real change in life: by changing your mindset.

Okay, but what exactly is mindset?

Your mindset is basically your worldview. It’s how you see things and how you think about them. It’s your attitude, your belief system, your identity.

If you want to know what your mindset is right now, start to notice your thoughts. Are you thinking This is stupid, this’ll never work, I hate this? Do you often look for the negative side of a situation? Do you often find yourself dwelling on why something is wrong or bad? Those are all signs of a negative mindset. (And remember, your mindset can change from day to day or even minute to minute.)

Do you often look for the positive? Do you look for ways to make thing happens, and look for lessons to learn when they don’t? That’s a pretty positive mindset!

Now why is this important? Because your mindset determines your results.

Your mindset is the key factor of whether you’ll reach your goals or not.

Here’s why. Because if you have a positive mindset, you’re more likely to think big. To imagine. To believe you can be, do, and have the things you want. To set big, exciting goals – and then to find ways to achieve them.

Conversely, a negative mindset impacts your actions negatively. You’re more likely to feel lousy, expect to be disappointed, not go for what you really want, and give up after a setback.

Now, there’s a lot more to mindset than just “negative” and “positive.” It’s not that black and white. There are lots of mindset tools you can use, such as visualization, goal-setting, and powerful questions, to optimize your mindset and put it to work for you. There’s also growth versus fixed mindset, which is another important one. These are all important tools that you’ll learn how to put to work for you when you start to work with a life coach.

Have I piqued your interest yet? Come see for yourself what it’s like to work with a life coach! You’ll be amazed at what can happen when you step into a new perspective, make some mindset tweaks, and open yourself up to those things you really want.

Plus – the best part about having a coach is that they’re will with 100% of the way. I’ll be there to guide, support, and challenge you, hold you accountable, and help you stay motivated.

Ready to get started? Contact me here! I can’t wait to meet you and see what beautiful things are waiting for you to reach out and grab them.