Everyone needs a coach

We happily buy services and products to improve our appearance. We spend lots of money on clothes, accessories, teeth, eyes, hair, nails and gym membership. But not all of us see the value in investing in ourselves. And yet, what is inside of us should matter more than what is on the outside. 

A transformative coach will help you be the person you always wanted to be and handle all of those challenging life situations. In fact, a coach is the one person everyone needs in their life in order to achieve more than they think they are capable of. 

Removing limitations

Our thoughts about past performance, fear of failure (“I failed once, I will fail again!”), our upbringing, society, culture, belief system, our understanding of what we can or cannot do, what is expected of us and what others are thinking of us, are often in the way of us achieving what we want in life. We may suffer from low esteem, maybe because of something someone has said to us or maybe because we compare ourselves to others. Many of us do not like to venture outside of our comfort zone and yet admire those that can. Maybe we are stuck in a job we do not like, are finding it difficult to cope with noisy neighbours, regret not going to university, feel we are too unfit to run a marathon, or lack the confidence to achieve a life long goal.

A transformative coach will help you change your perspective on what is going on in your life, help you dispel self-limiting beliefs and see clearly what you are capable of. They will help you turn: “I can not do this“ into: “How can I do this?”.

Resilience

Every now and then we come to a point in our life when things get too much. We have too much work, tight deadlines, competing priorities, lack of resources to do what we need to, we have a demanding boss, an underperforming team member, we spend all our time in the office and only see our family at weekends. Maybe we are faced with a life changing event such as losing our job, suffering from ill health, experiencing a relationship breakdown or bereavement. Perhaps there is a combination of things that happen at the same time - loss of income following redundancy which, for some, may put their home at risk. It is very easy in these situations to think that we are no longer able to cope. Happiness, joy and fulfilment all but disappear from our life. We get stressed, anxious, depressed, cannot sleep at night, and it is easy to turn to drink or start smoking as a coping mechanism. The colour drains from everything, life appears to be devoid of hope and we are convinced that we cannot cope. Has this ever happened to you or someone you know? The answer is very likely to be ‘yes’. 

Well-meaning as they may be, our friends and family are not always best placed to help us see how to overcome a particular life challenge or we may not want to share sensitive issues with people we know. A coach will help you see how you can discover and leverage your own ability to cope and show you how to navigate your way through the challenges you encounter in your life. 

Fulfilment and happiness 

We have big dreams when we are young. Our future is full of possibilities, happiness and success. And then we get our first job, rent or buy a house, buy a car, get married or are in a long term relationship, have children. All of a sudden, we feel responsible for the wellbeing and welfare of our loved ones, we feel that we have to stay in the job we are in, even if it is not our dream job, to keep paying the rent or make mortgage repayments. We think that we have to compete with our friends on cars, gadgets and holidays. We feel that our choices are limited, our future mapped out and we lose sight of what it is in life that we want and what makes us truly happy. 

Our circumstances do not define who we are and do not determine our happiness. A coach will help you find clarity to see what is important to you and how you can achieve the happiness you are looking for and live the life you want.

Achieving better results

According to a saying attributed to Albert Einstein, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. However, it is not always obvious what we need to do differently to overcome a particular challenge or improve our performance. Before writing this article, I asked my husband what he thinks a coach can do to help others. His answer was: “most people can swim, but to compete in the Olympics, they would need someone to help them show how they can swim differently to improve their performance”. 

A coach will challenge what you know and what you do, may even push you out of your comfort zone and show you a different way to do things to get better results. 

What is stopping you from having a better life?

A number of people you know have coaches, mentors and advisers. Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Richard Branson, to name a few. Why? It is simple - a transformative coach will bring clarity, happiness and better results into your life.

So before you buy the latest smart phone or a pair of designer shoes, think about investing in yourself instead. It will pay off!


Marlena O'Donnell
The Resilience and Results Specialist