Life Coaching For Dummies E-Book

Jeni Purdie

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 632

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

Become a life coach-for yourself and others-with this practical, informative guide

If you're interested in doing away with negative beliefs, making a significant change in your life, and, finally, create-and live-the life you want, life coaching is the key. In this practical introduction, you will learn the empowering techniques essential to life coaching-including putting together an action plan, getting your priorities straight, staying focused, defining true success, overcoming common obstacles, and coaching yourself to happiness.

• With more information than ever before, this new updated edition includes material on emotional intelligence and active listening

With insights on what to expect from life coaching and how to develop your own life coaching techniques, the book offers sound advice on what it takes to become a professional life coach. If you simply want to create more balance in your life, become more productive, and enjoy a more fulfilling existence, Life Coaching For Dummies holds the answer.

Leseprobe

Life Coaching For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organised

Part I: The Basics of Life Coaching

Part II: Your Life Coaching Journey

Part III: Focusing on the Elements of Your Life

Part IV: Working with the Themes of Coaching

Part V: Creating a Harmonious Whole Life

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: The Basics of Life Coaching

Chapter 1: Introducing Life Coaching

A Brief Definition of Life Coaching

What Life Coaching Is Not

Living Your Best Life

Getting ready for change

Presenting the passport for your coaching journey

Choosing Life Coaching for Long-Term Results

Tuning In to Your Inner Coach

Introducing your split personality!

Giving yourself the gift of your own good opinion

Turning up the volume on the voice of your inner coach

Having a coaching conversation

Identifying Your Current Priorities for Coaching

Chapter 2: Deciding What You Want to Take from Coaching

Assessing the Benefits and Challenges of Coaching

Attaining goals

Achieving balance

Finding purpose

Changing your mindset

Growing through self-awareness

Enjoying the journey

Considering the challenges of coaching

Deciding on a Coaching Method

Finding the right coach

Considering co-coaching

Deciding to self-coach

Making a Promise to Yourself

Checking out your current life conditions

Framing your coaching promise

Chapter 3 : Preparing for Coaching

Getting Ready for Your Coaching Session

Beginning Your Coaching Journey

Seeing the big picture

Packing your survival kit

The stages of your journey

Knowing Where You Are on the Road

Marking Your Progress

Using milestone goals to celebrate success

Giving yourself a pat on the back

Choosing people to cheer you on

Anticipating setbacks and relapses

Keeping a record

Painting a picture

Part II: Your Life Coaching Journey

Chapter 4 : Becoming Your Best Self

Considering Your Unique Gifts

What do you do really well?

How do you do that thing you do? Boosting your competencies

Noticing Your Preferences

Looking out or looking in?

Finding your behavioural styles

Adding new behaviours

Chapter 5: Choosing Your Beliefs

Understanding How Your Beliefs Shape You

Where do your beliefs come from?

What are your beliefs?

What do your beliefs give you?

Changing Your Beliefs

Reshaping a limiting belief

Getting under the skin of your most stubborn limiting beliefs

Learning to Manage Your Fears

Identifying fears that drive you and fears that block you

Recognising your fear foes

Minimising your fear foes

Chapter 6: Discovering the Values that Motivate You

Navigating with Your Own Coordinates

Reading your personal road map

Knowing what your needs are

Getting Clear on Your Values

What are your values?

Reflecting on your values

Sorting Through Conflicts of Motivation

Looking out for your heart’s desire

Dealing with changing priorities

Chapter 7: Stocking Up on Powerful Questions

Delving into the Power of Asking Questions

Heeding hesitation

Confronting confusion

Fighting frustration

Don’t Get Stuck Asking the Wrong Questions!

Asking the Right Questions

Moving down the funnel

Finding your most powerful questions

Listening to the Answers

When you don’t know the answer

Tuning into energy levels to find the answers

Chapter 8: Taking Stock of Now

Practising Awareness

Taking short cuts without cutting corners

Balancing assets and liabilities

Redefining success

Focusing on outcomes

Tapping into Your Intuitive Self

Trusting your gut feeling

Living with a light heart

Cultivating a relaxed focus

Knowing What You Really Want

You don’t have to have what you’ve always had

You’re creating your future now

Visualising your whole-life goals

Placing your whole-life goals on your horizon

Chapter 9: Exploring Your Options

Moving from Problems to Possibilities

Avoiding the ‘yes, but’ game

The desert island scenario

Assessing Your Stock of Resources

Building supportive networks

Increasing your resources

Expanding Your Range of Options

Developing a creative approach

Playing with unlimited options

Choosing the best fit

Chapter 10: Planning Effective Action

Smarten Up Your Goal Setting

Putting theory into practice

Smartening up to lose weight

Matching Your Options to Your Goals

Setting milestones for your journey

Taking baby steps

Keeping Your Promise to Yourself

Thinking like a hero

When life gets in the way of living

Exploding the myth of will-power

Dealing with jealousy from others

Part III: Focusing on the Elements of Your Life

Chapter 11: Career and Work

Assessing Your Attitudes to Work

Playing your part in different work roles

Balancing your different roles

Setting Your Work in Context

Making a conscious choice

Evaluating your job

Making adjustments at work

Improving Your Current Job

Keeping your focus

Dealing with negative situations

Finding Your Dream Work

Knowing your job-search goal

Working the market

Using your networks

Getting Recognition for Your Work

Getting feedback

Promoting your personal brand

Looking to the Future

Chapter 12: Money, Wealth and Abundance

Defining the Role of Money in Your Life

Being Financially Secure

Drawing up your financial ground rules

Developing your financial survival plan

Living Your Chosen Lifestyle

Counting the true cost of your lifestyle

Permitting yourself to be rich

Cultivating a Feeling of Wealth and Abundance

Giving It All Away

Chapter 13: People and Relationships

Enjoying Loving Relationships

Creating a relationship with yourself

Finding your soul mate

Building and maintaining a strong partnership

Deciding to leave a relationship

Nurturing Family Bonds

Setting family ground rules

Giving and Receiving Friendship

Maintaining lifelong friendships

Staying open to new friendships

Building Productive Networks

Widening your circle of influence

Getting into the networking groove

Taking a role in your world

Chapter 14: Physical, Mental and Emotional Well-being

Choosing Your Health Goals

Defining your health goals

Digging deeper into your motivation

Looking After Your Body

Avoiding illness and disease

Filling your body with the best fuel

Avoiding sweat and tears: Finding the best exercise for you

Building energy, strength and fitness

Taking Care of Your Mental and Emotional Well-being

Managing your emotions

Getting out of getting into a state

Developing mental resilience

Chapter 15: Developing and Growing

Thriving on Learning

Being your best

Harnessing your brain power

Playing in the Game of Life

Benefiting from a playful approach

Making the most of your leisure time

Getting in Touch with Your Spiritual Side

What is spirituality for you?

Accessing your spirituality

Exploring spirituality through coaching

Part IV: Working with the Themes of Coaching

Chapter 16: Attracting the Life You Want

Mastering the Art of Acceptance

Letting go of resistance

Being present

Wanting What You Have

Practising gratitude

Tuning into your positive emotions

Chapter 17: Coaching Yourself to Happiness

Discovering Your Happiness Formula

Getting into the flow

Delving into positive psychology

Identifying the elements of happiness for you

Discovering Optimism

Taking charge of your mindset

Practising the positive

Planning Your Happy Life

Making time to be happy

Keeping faith and focus on happiness

Chapter 18: Defining True Success

Knowing Your Value in the World

Adopting the personal qualities of success

Modelling excellence

Getting the Results You Want

Developing your inner success compass

Thinking Yourself to Success

Observing your thoughts

Creating positive outcomes

Chapter 19: Tackling Common Blocks

Kicking Procrastination into Touch

Getting to the root of why you procrastinate

Maintaining momentum

Sorting out wishing from wanting

Clearing Up Confusion

Knowing why you feel conflicted

Finding common ground for forward motion

Transforming Self-doubt into Self-esteem

Accepting yourself as you are

Knowing that you’re worth it

Part V: Creating a Harmonious Whole Life

Chapter 20: Achieving Balance

Finding Your Balance

Integrating the Goldilocks theory of balance into your life

Checking out your daily energy balance

Centring yourself

Regaining Your Balance

Managing yourself and your time

Learning to love delegation

Choosing to let go

Saying what you mean

Managing Longer-Term Stress

Spotting your danger signs

Coaching your way through stressful situations

Chapter 21: Making a Life-Changing Decision

Knowing How Your Stage of Life Affects Your Attitude to Change

Recognising Your Need to Make a Radical Change

Moving from pain to pleasure and purpose

Noticing the clues in your emotions

Deciding to be your authentic self

Making Your Best Decision

Fixing it

Fleeing from it

Building on strength

Letting Go and Integrating the New

Working through the change

Evolving to the next stage

Chapter 22: Applying Your Coaching Skills More Widely

Thinking beyond Self-Coaching

Developing Key Skills for Coaching Others

Hear, hear! The art of listening

Building rapport

Using Your Skills Ethically

Developing a Coaching Role in Your Life

Coaching friends and family

Building coaching into your job

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Chapter 23: Ten Life Coaching Beliefs about Yourself

You Are Unique

Your Whole Life Is the Canvas for Coaching

You Hold Your Own Agenda

You Are Resourceful

You Are Capable of Great Results

You Can Generate the Right Solutions for Yourself

You Are Free from Being Judged

You Can Make Powerful Choices

You Take Responsibility for Your Results

You Trust Your Senses

Chapter 24: Ten Questions to Keep Your Life on Track

What Would I Do If I Knew I Couldn’t Fail?

Who Am I Becoming?

What Am I Doing Right Now to Honour My Core Values?

What Am I Settling For?

What Is My Legacy?

Where Do I Focus My Attention?

How Am I Using My Gifts?

What Am I Holding on to That I No Longer Need?

How Much Time Do I Spend with People Who Inspire Me?

What One Thing Would I Change for the Better?

Chapter 25: Ten Daily Balancing Acts

See a Clear Vision

Take a Gratitude Tonic

Do a Kind and Thoughtful Act

Soak Up Wise Words

See-saw between Action and Reflection

Take a Deep Breath

Share a Smile

Give Yourself a Treat

Stretch Out

Get Natural

Chapter 26: Ten Inspirational Resources

Your Life Is a Journey

Get Out of Your Mind

See Things as You Want Them to Be

Choose Happiness

Feast Your Senses

Value Your Life Experience

Poetry Creates Motion

No Place Like Home

Your Life Is Significant

Let Your Inner Coach Come Out to Play

Appendix: Considering a Future as a Professional Life Coach

Knowing your offering

Choosing the right marketing methods for you

End User License Agreement

Life Coaching For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

by Jeni Purdie

Life Coaching For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Published byJohn Wiley & Sons, LtdThe AtriumSouthern GateChichesterWest SussexPO19 8SQEngland

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About the Author

Jeni Purdie is a coach and facilitator who applies whole life coaching techniques to her work with people and within businesses. Before her own life-changing decision to become a coach, Jeni benefited from a 16-year career with the Hays group, spanning recruitment, sales operations, project management, and people development, where she was lucky enough to embark on a new challenging job role every 18 months or so. It was this experience of discovering that the grass is green wherever you are – if you take proper care of the lawn – that gave Jeni the conviction and motivation to build her purpose around inspiring people to attract and enjoy their own dream life, work and vision of happiness.

In her business Jeni uses best practice coaching techniques together with NLP, and is a licensed facilitator of TetraMap (a holistic model of behaviour; www.tetramap.co.uk) and Goal Mapping (a brain friendly technique for identifying and maximising progress towards goals; www.liftinternational.com). She is addicted to learning and this helps her add value to her work with clients. But in her moments of brutal self-honesty Jeni will admit that quite a lot of the credit is down to the succession of cats who have owned her, from whom she has picked up a great deal about how to handle the ups and downs of life.*

One of the things Jeni likes best about being a coach is that she feels she always gets as much if not more out of the experience than her clients and she can’t thank them enough for the honour of seeing them move themselves from frustration to power. Honestly, it’s enough to make you want to write a book about it…

You can find out more about Jeni and her business at: www.reachforstarfish.com.

* This philosophy can be summed up as: play, ponder, and when in doubt, take a long nap in the sun or on a comfy bed.

Author's Acknowledgments

It’s been a delight to work on the second edition of this book. My first thanks remain with the wonderful team at Wiley and especially Rachael Chilvers, who has been my Editor on both editions. You’ve been a joy once more!

I feel deep gratitude to all the friends and family who have shaped my life, loved and supported me throughout the writing process for both editions.

It’s been immensely gratifying to have had such great feedback from readers of the first edition and therefore my heartfelt thanks still go to the people who helped me make it as good as it could possibly be. My original reader group tried out activities, and fed back on sample chapters. Ali, Carol, Margaret, Anne, Pam, Carolyn, Jos, Pennie, Roma, Debbie, Brian, Liza, Sue, Doug, Paul and Tim – I truly valued your contributions and the book would have been the poorer without you all.

During the journey of updating and adding new chapters for the second edition three people in particular have been of significance. Marie Taylor, my business partner at www.livingrightnow.com, who individually and in our work together has shaped my philosophies about living a fully present life. Jules Wyman of www.positive-belief.co.uk who gave valuable input on her core expertise – confidence and self esteem. And Tim Downes of www.trueresults.co.uk who lives and breathes the journey of meaningful success for himself and his clients. Your influences have greatly enhanced the new chapters – thank you, dear friends and fellow coaches.

Final thanks are due to all of the inspirational people who have coached me, especially my current coach Mark Gleave (www.freedomfromthethinkingmind.co.uk), to all my clients who have taught me so much, and to readers of the first edition who through their feedback have helped me make this new edition an even more valuable resource for anyone wanting to create and enjoy their best self and life.

Dedication

To two people who are in my life now in very different ways:

Brian, for your continued encouragement and belief in me.

Ali, for all that you gave and all that you still inspire in me.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

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Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Commissioning, Editorial, and Media Development

Project Editor: Rachael Chilvers

Commissioning Editor: Nicole Hermitage

Content Editor: Jo Theedom

Assistant Editor: Ben Kemble

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Cartoons: Rich Tennant www.the5thwave.com

Composition Services

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Proofreader: Lauren Mandelbaum

Indexer: Ty Koontz

Introduction

A few years ago I left my well-paid and prestigious job with a global corporation to venture into the scary world of self-employment as a life coach. Many of my colleagues who I’d come to know and love over the years wished me well and asked exactly what I’d be doing. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘I suppose what I’m really interested in is inspiring people to find the right balance, enjoyment, and meaning in their lives.’

‘Oh,’ they replied, and a faraway look came into their eyes, ‘I could really do with some of that.’ Then their gaze focused back on their overflowing desk and the ringing phone. ‘But I don’t see how I can possibly give up my job.’ And they smiled, reached for the phone, and did what they knew they did best. I found their response very interesting because it summed up the precise feelings I’d wrestled with for three long years before finally taking my personal plunge. I began working closely with people from widely different backgrounds, with widely different reasons for coming to personal coaching. And I discovered that when you take the time to question and challenge your own assumptions, to focus on working out what your own life is really about, rather than what you or others think it should be, things start to make a lot of sense. You begin to get more balance, enjoy yourself more, and work out the meaning of life for you (for fans of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the meaning of life does not appear to be 42, by the way, however comforting that thought may be to those of you in search of certainty).

Coaching is like using a really efficient search engine to help you work out what you really want. Coaching gives you the keywords to finding meaning in your life, like nothing else I’ve ever discovered. That’s why I wrote this book – so that you can have that power too.

About This Book

This book is about coaching yourself to greater balance, enjoyment, and meaning. You can also use this book as background inspiration if you’re already working with a life coach. And professional life coaches can suggest this book to your clients to act as a virtual coach between sessions. You can also find information here about helping others through using your coaching skills.

Conventions Used in This Book

Breathe a huge sigh of relief – this book is a jargon-free zone. Some books about life coaching can spin your head, but this book sets out the information in a practical way so that you can quickly and easily start to make a difference in your life. When I do introduce a new term, I italicise and define it.

The only other conventions in this book are that web addresses are in monofont, and the action part of numbered steps and the key concept in a list are in bold. I alternate between using female and male pronouns in even and odd chapters to be fair to both!

Foolish Assumptions

I assume, perhaps wrongly, that some of the following applies to you:

You’ve heard the term life coaching and think that behind the rather airy-fairy, fluffy name something useful and practical may be in it for you.

You gravitate towards the personal development/peak performance/self-help sections of train station newsagents and sneakily take pop-personality and lifestyle quizzes on a regular basis.

You’re fed up with gurus in the media telling you they’ve found the holy grail to personal fulfilment. You reckon you probably know more about it than they do (you do, actually).

You’re committed to being your best self but get a bit frustrated at times that it seems so hard.

You’re hungry for inspiration and practical guidance on how to fit all the pieces of your life jigsaw together, but you don’t have time to attend motivational seminars.

This book is for anyone who has a life and wants to really live that life.

How This Book Is Organised

This book is divided into six parts, each covering a broad subject area.

Part I: The Basics of Life Coaching

This part explains what life coaching is and what it isn’t. You discover why and how life coaching works. This part helps you decide what you want to get out of coaching and how to set yourself up for success.

Part II: Your Life Coaching Journey

Part II takes you on a whistle-stop tour of your natural behaviour preferences, the beliefs you have that can either propel you forward or hold you back, and the things that really get you going in a positive direction. You find out how to build your own stock of powerful coaching questions to help you on your journey. The chapters in this part encourage you to set your goals and create a robust strategy for seeing your plan through.

Part III: Focusing on the Elements of Your Life

Part III homes in on the different areas of your life that may need the most attention:

Career and work

Money and wealth

People and relationships

Health and wellbeing

Personal growth

The chapters in this part cover your options in the daily challenges you have in these different areas.

Part IV: Working with the Themes of Coaching

In Part IV you discover how to really appreciate the present moment and attract good things into your life. You find out about the happiness formula (yes, it really exists), and the factors that are proven to contribute towards individual happiness . . . you may be surprised by the results.

In this part you also explore your definition of success; what success really means to you. Finally, I offer some tips for tackling common blocks to living your best life, such as procrastination or a lack of confidence.

Part V: Creating a Harmonious Whole Life

Fixing on one bit of anything can sometimes throw the whole system out of balance. In this part you examine what balance means to you and how you can work out the best way to find equilibrium in your life.

You can also ponder on how to make a really big life-changing decision safely, if you feel that change is on the horizon.

This part also explores the wider role that coaching may play in your world in the future.

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Here you find the ten core beliefs about you that can sustain your progress, the ten most powerful questions you can ask yourself to help you develop, ten things to do each day to stay in balance, and ten inspirational resources to keep at your fingertips.

Icons Used in This Book

All For Dummies books feature icons to draw your attention to special paragraphs. In this book you find these icons:

The placard highlights activities – some fun, some more serious – to help you on your coaching journey. Jump to these if you love filling out those personality questionnaires in magazines!

I’ve witnessed some amazing transformations as a result of coaching. The inspiration icon shares what real people have done and how they have done it. Their experiences can give you clues to your own way forward.

This icon draws your attention to an important point to bear in mind, often one that’s been discussed in another chapter when I want to make sure you’ve got the connection in case you’re wandering randomly through the pages. (If you are, no turning down of page corners, now. Oh, all right, you can if you want to. It’s your book.)

Coaching yourself is all about finding your own answers. The springboard icon signposts you to a great website, resource, or longer activity that can take you to another level in your knowledge or thinking.

This icon highlights practical tips to help you on your life coaching journey.

Where to Go from Here

‘We’re all individuals,’ as the crowd shouted in unison in the Monty Python comedy TheLife of Brian. And you don’t have to live your life or read this book in a conventional way. You can take detours, zigzag back and forth, and get pleasantly lost in admiring the terrain along your way. You can choose to start at Chapter 1 and follow the chapters in order. Or you can dip in and out of the book as you like.

You may want to go straight to the Part of Tens and get a flavour of the life coaching beliefs, or just dip in and see what you find. After you’ve devoured this book you can check out my website for additional resources, information, and goodies (www.reachforstarfish.com).

It’s your book, your choice, your life. Make the most of it.

Part I

The Basics of Life Coaching

In this part . . .

From finding out what life coaching actually is, through deciding how it’s going to work for you, to laying the foundations for your own success, the chapters in this part focus your mind on how to get the best out of the journey ahead.

Chapter 1

Introducing Life Coaching

In This Chapter

Knowing why coaching works

Meeting your inner coach

Coming to terms with change

Working out your current life priorities

People talk lots of hokum about life coaching. Life coaching television programmes, magazines and newspaper columns range in quality from the powerful and inspirational through to the downright misleading and dangerous. True life coaching isn’t about some guru telling you how you should live. Yes, you may be tempted to bask in the comfort of an expert who can fix your life, your fashion sense, your body flaws and your emotional angst. But these fixes are too often like an elegant sticking plaster. Changes don’t last, unless a real change has come from deep within you. True life coaching enables you to call on your very own inner guru, any time, any place, with or without the support of another human being.

This chapter explains how coaching can work its magic for you and how it can help you manage the changes in your life, not just right now, but through all the shifting priorities of your journey.

A Brief Definition of Life Coaching

Here’s my definition of life coaching:

A purposeful conversation that inspires you to create your best life.

You have conversations all the time (unless you’re a hermit in a cave). Your conversations are chit-chat to pass the time and get along with people, or purposeful talks where you clarify thought processes, resolve problems, reach agreements and commit to actions.