LIFE & EXECUTIVE COACHING: A process which helps you to define and achieve your goals – or to tackle specific obstacles – so you can maximise your potential in life or work. 

People often liken this kind of coaching to having a personal trainer for your life and work-related goals. It’s a profession that can be practised in many different forms and styles. The approach I use tends to follow these core principles:

1 – Non-directional: Unlike many forms of counselling, mentoring or technical coaching (e.g. sports training), Life Coaching doesn’t tell you what to do. As the client, you set the agenda, and you choose your own answers and actions. My role as coach is to:

• Hold your agenda, and keep you accountable to it
• Listen carefully and empathically
• Ask powerful questions that unlock your self-awareness, take you beyond your perceived limits, and help you to find the right solutions
• Recognise and support your progress along the way

It’s a collaborative relationship, which gives you a greater sense of empowerment, ownership and resourcefulness. It also means that the resolutions and life-changes you make during the coaching process are far more likely to continue working for you in the longer term.

2 – Non-judgmental: A good coach will create and hold a safe space for you to share your feelings, fears, aspirations and ideas. I trust that all your beliefs and actions, at their root, are motivated by a positive intention. Any thoughts or emotions that come to the surface during sessions are welcome and valid. The experience of being listened to non-judgmentally is a rare and profound experience, and it’s a cornerstone of effective coaching relationships.

3 – Constructive and forward-looking: Unlike some forms of psychotherapy, Life & Executive Coaching won’t analyse you or dissect your past experiences. It may help you to let go of old limiting beliefs that aren’t benefiting you any more, but the focus of the sessions is your present situation and future path. To this end, I will guide you through the design and implementation of clear, motivating goals and strategies, aligning these with your core values and purpose.

Powerful questions

Life & Executive Coaching is based upon open-ended curious questions that encourage personal exploration. Frequently, the client brings a particular issue to the session, but then we discover something more significant is going on underneath it. Powerful questions help you to see a situation more clearly and accurately, to place it within a bigger context, and to identify important patterns and relationships in your life.

Here are some of my favourite questions to use in coaching sessions. You might like to reflect on any which particularly resonate with you or intrigue you somehow: