In honor of International Coaching Week, February 6 through 12, I am posting a series of short articles about coaching.

Day 4: How Do People Use Coaching?

People can seek coaching for support in nearly every aspect of their lives. A general “life coach” or “business coach” may help a client focus on many or all aspects life or business. In a sports metaphor, a head coach, someone who oversees all aspects of the game and team, is like a life coach.

Many coaches have a specialty, or niche, and focus on helping certain kinds of people (e.g., executives, entrepreneurs, speakers, direct sellers) or address certain aspects of life (e.g., relationships, life balance, communication). A specialist coach still connects to the whole client and doesn’t work totally in isolation on one particular area. In a sports metaphor again, a specialist coach might be someone who works with basketball players only on their free throws, or a putting coach for golfers.

Clients may come to coaches with the desire to create change in one or more of the following focus areas (and many others!):

• Career advancement
• Career change and job seeking
• Life balance
• Management and executive skills
• Starting or growing a business (including marketing)
• Time management/productivity
• ADD support
• Improve communication (including presentation and professional speaking)
• Organization
• Relationships (including parenting)
• Self-esteem and self-confidence
• Handling a specific issue
• Problem solving
• Financial planning
• Spiritual growth
• Health and wellness

I’ve you’re consider hiring a coach, but are not sure what to use a coach for, ask yourself these questions: What one aspect of my life could benefit from some coaching? What one area of my life, if I improved it, would improve all the other areas?

A lot of people think that coaching only comes into play for big-picture life or career issues. Did you know that coaching can also be supportive of a single particular project or a short-term goal?

Just about anything you can imagine that has a timeline for completion can benefit from some coaching attention!

• Writing a book
• Creating a business plan
• Developing a workshop or speech
• Training plan for a triathlon
• Losing a set amount of weight
• Starting a club or community group
• Planning a wedding or other large event
• Completing college or graduate school
• Job search
• Work projects, such as creation of an action team or development of a program
• Earning tenure at a university
• Increasing sales in a single quarter
• Marketing planning and implementation

Imagine what might be possible if you had focused support and energy around a single project. What could you achieve?

Tomorrow: Are You Coachable?

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Tags: business, coach, coaching, goal, Goals, implementation, life, life balance, life coach, project, timeline, topic, work