What Is Life Coaching

Life coaching is the process of gaining clarity, defining goals, and overcoming identified and subconscious obstacles which are creating barriers to personal achievement.

These barriers might show up as:

  • A feeling of being stuck

  • Being unable to move forward from a situation, feeling “unresolved”

  • Facing the same issues repeatedly without making progress

  • Repeating dreams

The life coaching process usually starts with identifying goals, shifts into uncovering and addressing these barriers to reveal the core issues, and culminates with newfound clarity and direction surrounding a client’s purpose for goal attainment.

Through self-awareness and personal transformation, a client’s goals typically shift over time to best align with the individual where they are at in this moment of their life’s journey. Clients may seek life coaching to address one or several goals in succession.

Transpersonal life coaching infuses, where appropriate and at the client’s request, spiritual and energetic elements into the process of goal attainment, whether this be utilizing a client’s religious affiliations, spiritual alignment, or core belief systems. The transpersonal approach seeks to integrate the entire Self: physical, emotional, cognitive, soul, and spirit, into the process of manifesting the chosen goal.

  • Transpersonal psychology is a branch of psychology focused on studying the spiritual and transcendental aspects of the human experience. It is an approach that seeks to understand how the connection between the self and our higher consciousness can lead to growth and self-development.

    For more information on Transpersonal Psychology and it’s connection to emotional wellness and mental health, please visit:

    https://meridianuniversity.edu/content/what-is-transpersonal-psychology

    • Life Coach — someone who helps you evaluate an identified goal and address roadblocks to attaining that goal through exploration of contextual issues creating barriers to achievement potential, in other words, to become the best version of yourself. Coaches focus on the future and do not address trauma and past issues.

    • Counselor – seeks to discover issues in the clients past that are blocking them from success. Special techniques and tools are used to understand these issues and bring healing and closure to them so that the client may move ahead. While coaches and counselors may use many of the same dialog techniques, coaching begins in the present and is future oriented.

    • Mentor – someone who has expertise in a particular area and shares that learning with mentee. Mentors provide knowledge, advise, guide, correct and encourage in their field of expertise. A mentor works within their profession, whereas a coach with good discovery, change and communication skills can coach clients across a multitude of areas including life, career/business, health, and emotional wellness.

    • Consultants – specialists who are paid for solutions. They diagnose the problem and propose a solution. Many times they implement it as well. Coaches also focus on solutions but draw solutions out of the client. Coaches support the client in creating a plan of action and implementing it. Ultimately, clients gain long-term problem-solving capacity.