What is Life Coaching?

A life coach is someone who helps develop skill and strategies and provides support to people who wish to improve their lives, helping them to make decisions, solve problems and achieve goals. They coach their clients and help them to reassess and reorganize their lives in terms of life changing circumstances, physical health, financial freedom, career path, relationships, self-esteem and emotional well being. Coaching deals with relatively healthy people who want to improve their lives in specific ways, such as changing careers, adjusting to changes affecting their lives through the losses brought about by the current economic climate such as for example job loss, security, status, independence. Also it’s about finding and developing healthy relationships and improving their parental skills.As your life coaches we will truly listen to you, without analysis or judgment as you work things out and overcome the challenges that keep you stuck.
Coaching focuses on acceptance and observations of what is in a person’s life and what that person can do by their own action and self-belief to change their life for the future. A coach does not fix anything – but helps clients to move forward and empower themselves. 
Through conversation, clients are helped to understand why they find themselves in their current situation and then to find strategies, motivations and focus to design and move towards new better situations.

  How Does Life Coaching Work?

Life Coaching is a planned agreement between coach and client where the coaching relationship continually gives all the power back to you, the client. We believe that you know the answers to every question or challenge you may have in your life, even if those answers appear to be obscured, concealed or hidden inside. 
Our skills are about knowing the right questions to ask and having the right tools and techniques to empower you to find those answers within yourself. 
You, the client, are the only expert in your entire life who truly knows who you are and what you need. You are the only expert who can recognise what is absolutely best for you. We are simply experts in the coaching process. As your coach, we help you discover what your own personal "best" might be. 
Life coaching helps you learn how to make choices that create an effective, balanced and fulfilling life.

  The Process of Coaching. 

Most is done by private consultations sessions in our comfortable private consulting rooms within a medical centre in Dundalk. Sessions usually run for an hour and happen weekly - but they can run less frequently. Clients may have just one session, or they may work with their life coach for many months but every case is unique.
What you pay varies widely depending on the best programme suited to your needs. 
So what happens in the session? Well, again, every case is unique. Exactly what we do depends on the client, the issue being worked on, and where we are in the process, but here are some things which are almost always true:

• The sessions are relaxed, friendly, fun and positive experiences The sessions are completely confidential. Clients remain in charge at all times - you can set any boundaries you need; Life coaches do not tell clients what to do.  Professional life coaches have a raft of techniques available to them; through listening in special ways and by asking careful questions, they encourage clients to find understanding in their lives, and the answers they need

• Many coaches, including ourselves use N.L.P. to assist their clients make the changes they desire. N.L.P. provides a tool-box of techniques which enable people to make these changes easily and rapidly. 

“Nothing is predestined: The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.” Ralph Blum

  Coaching versus Counseling

Counseling pays a lot of attention to a perceived ‘problem’ in a person’s life and focuses on the effect of the past on the present – on the event which has caused you to feel the way you do about yourself and life at present and about resolving your feelings with the tragedy or trauma. Coaching differs from counseling in that the focus is more on finding solutions, the here and now and on the future rather than dwelling on the past. Because of this goals and behavioural patterns tend to come more under the spotlight. Also, in coaching there is a more equal balance of power between the coach and their client than would appear usual in a patient/therapist relationship.

  Who is Life Coaching for?                         

You! It's for anyone who wants to improve some aspect of their life. You may want to learn how to deal with recent changes in your life – personal, career or financial situation. You might want to find your perfect partner, to write your novel, find new self confidence, or get rid of a destructive habit. You might want to get more balance between your working or private lives. Maybe you want to start your own business, go back to education or find the focus necessary to pass important exams. You might just be unhappy without knowing why.
Whatever you want to change, coaching can probably help, with just a couple of notable exceptions. If you have a mental illness or a hard drug problem, then coaching is probably not the best option for you - you're more likely to get the help you need from a therapist specifically qualified in those specific areas.