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David Beard · 08-11-2008, 05:29 AM

Please forgive me if I've put this comment in the middle of where it's not supposed to be. I tried finding a 'new post' starting point when I finished reading Steve's post on Life Coaching, but failed abysmally as you can see.

I wanted to obtain some viewpoints after reading Steve Pavlina's take on Life Coaching where he advises: "a good life coach will have superior knowledge and experience in the area(s) in which you want to improve".

In other parts of the blog Steve refers to Life Coaches as providing solutions and solving problems.

My personal philosophy around life coaching is that coaches 'never' give advice. Nor are coaches expected to have superior knoweldge about anyone's life beyond what the client knows themselves.

The essence of life coaching (in my orientation) is to facilitate a client to find THEIR OWN solutions, through a coaching process, which puts the client in charge of the process completely. They are held in a place during the process where they have room and support to discover their own solutions, at the pace which is right for where they are int heri journey.

As soon as Life Coaches start supplying solutions they create a dependency relationship, which takes the client in exactly the opposite direction to personal empowerment.

I would have no issue with someone calling themselves a personal development coach, with a promise to share process, information and experiences from their own autobiography. However, the minute a Life Coach puts themsleves into the process, in defference to the client being the focus, it detracts from the clients process of discovering of their own power.

Anything else, as I have mentioned, creates a dependency relationship, leaving the client with the experience that they didn't really have the knowledge or experience to tackle the issues from their own power.

From the general thrust of Steve's narrative, I get the impression he is in this camp as well (that it's the client's journey, not the coaches) and he states as much in the piece. However, what prompted my comment is the possible mis-interpretation of the comments around 'solution providing' by the coach.

This is my perspective. I'd be genuinely interested in reading others.

Cheers
David

08-11-2008, 05:29 AM	#66 (permalink)
David Beard Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Brisbane Australia Posts: 6	Life Coaching General Please forgive me if I've put this comment in the middle of where it's not supposed to be. I tried finding a 'new post' starting point when I finished reading Steve's post on Life Coaching, but failed abysmally as you can see. I wanted to obtain some viewpoints after reading Steve Pavlina's take on Life Coaching where he advises: "a good life coach will have superior knowledge and experience in the area(s) in which you want to improve". In other parts of the blog Steve refers to Life Coaches as providing solutions and solving problems. My personal philosophy around life coaching is that coaches 'never' give advice. Nor are coaches expected to have superior knoweldge about anyone's life beyond what the client knows themselves. The essence of life coaching (in my orientation) is to facilitate a client to find THEIR OWN solutions, through a coaching process, which puts the client in charge of the process completely. They are held in a place during the process where they have room and support to discover their own solutions, at the pace which is right for where they are int heri journey. As soon as Life Coaches start supplying solutions they create a dependency relationship, which takes the client in exactly the opposite direction to personal empowerment. I would have no issue with someone calling themselves a personal development coach, with a promise to share process, information and experiences from their own autobiography. However, the minute a Life Coach puts themsleves into the process, in defference to the client being the focus, it detracts from the clients process of discovering of their own power. Anything else, as I have mentioned, creates a dependency relationship, leaving the client with the experience that they didn't really have the knowledge or experience to tackle the issues from their own power. From the general thrust of Steve's narrative, I get the impression he is in this camp as well (that it's the client's journey, not the coaches) and he states as much in the piece. However, what prompted my comment is the possible mis-interpretation of the comments around 'solution providing' by the coach. This is my perspective. I'd be genuinely interested in reading others. Cheers David Last edited by David Beard; 08-11-2008 at 06:35 AM.