Posted on: April 21st, 2022

“Everyone needs a coach. We all need people that give us feedback. That’s how we improve” — Bill Gates

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you must know that life coaching has become one of the fastest-growing industries of the 21st century. Hugely successful people such as Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates and Leonardo DiCaprio have all worked (and continue to work) with coaches to become everything they are renowned for today.

Celebrity or not, people left, right and centre are turning to coaches to chase their ambitions, turn their lives upside down (for the better) and make their dreams come true. Be it help with your career, your confidence, your manifestation practices or your eating habits, there is a coach for you, whatever your need.

So here are five reasons why you need a coach in your life.

1. Fast-Tracked Results

Do you have a specific goal you want to achieve? Maybe you’re not sure where to start or it feels like it’s taking a long time to get there? Maybe you’re lacking some motivation to deal with the nitty-gritty details of goals, or you are just so caught up in the future version of yourself that it’s hard to focus on the now (I know this is my problem).

This is where a life coach can come in, to get you on the right path and fast track your results. A coach, be it a business coach, mindset coach, manifestation coach (or anything in-between), is going to give you the tools, tips, suggestions and directions you need to address your biggest roadblocks and work past them, ultimately helping you to level up. They have done this before, it is their job to point and guide you in the direction of success.

While the coach is not going to do the work for you, a good coach is going to motivate you like you’ve never been motivated before. Their job is to shine a metaphorical spotlight on your life, revealing anything within you that may have been hiding in the shadows. Basically all the answers are already within you and a good coach is just going to help you highlight these solutions and put them to work.

By hiring a coach you are also making, quite often a very significant, investment of your time and money. Often this step can be motivation alone as you become literally invested. It becomes imperative you make the most of every minute of your time and put the work in to make a valuable return (however you define this) on your financial investment or it can feel as if you’ve wasted your time and money.

Note, if this investment is holding you back, consider putting a specific price on your happiness. Put a dollar figure on your confidence, your physical, emotional and mental health. How does it compare to what a coach is charging? (Hint, it doesn’t).

2. Be Held Accountable

I don’t know about you, but my intrinsic motivation waivers on an almost daily basis. Some mornings I spring out of bed while others I’m in a committed relationship with my snooze button.

Having a coach makes you accountable. A good coach will have you set tasks to be done and deadlines to have them done by. And yes you can do this by yourself, but if you’re anything like me, a commitment to yourself is never as strong as a commitment to someone else. Plus, if you’re a people pleaser, then telling your coach you haven’t yet done X, Y, Z despite your commitment is just not an option.

A coach is also going to check-in (based on what sort of schedule you’ve created) on a regular basis and a good coach is going to give you little bits of encouragement and motivation every step of the way.

Personally, my coach checks in with me weekly. Every Monday morning I get a voice message (and mini-pep-talk), asking me to report back on the week passed and set my goals and deadlines for the coming week. This process not only helps me set my goals and timeframes for completion in the coming week but makes me feel supported and encouraged. I know I am on the best possible path towards my ultimate goals and my coach tells me this regularly.

3. Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

Without a doubt, your coach is going to push you. Out of your bad habits, out of a less-than-productive routine and out of your comfort zone.

We all know that magic occurs when we step out of this zone of comfort surrounding our everyday life, but man it can be hard to take those steps sometimes.

If you are serious (I mean deadly serious) about chasing your dreams, your comfort zone needs to expand, again and again. Nothing changes if nothing changes.

Again and again, we have brilliant ideas about how we can do better, be better and move forwards in our careers, self-worth, eating habiting (whatever it is), but we don’t do anything.

A coach is going to jump on these ideas and make them happen. They will push you (in an encouraging, supportive, tough-love way) and won’t stop until you make it happen. Essentially, you’re paying for someone to kick your ass when you can’t do it yourself.

A good coach will also provide invaluable, unbiased feedback on your progress. For many people, (myself included) it can be incredibly difficult to find this feedback from other people in your life, with many of our closest friends and family often operating from inside a similar comfort zone to us, unaware of all the potential just around the corner.

Combine this with fast-tracked results, greater accountability and you’ve already got a recipe for success!

4. Change Your Mindset

Do you know all those challenges that just seems so big and unattainable? The challenges for other people to overcome, but definitely not you? Well, it turns out that you can achieve these too. You can do it, and a good coach will help you prove this to yourself again and again.

By taking your goals and breaking them down into small baby-steps, you start accomplishing things every day, every week, every month (etc.) and you start seeing positive patterns of accomplishment.

When you do things for the first time, it can be scary and daunting, your brain has no proof that you can do this thing so you doubt yourself. But once you’ve done it once, twice, three times before nothing is holding you back.

The same goes for achieving your goals. When you’ve done it once it becomes so much easier to believe in yourself and have the confidence you need to do it again and again. Once you see this pattern, your mindset changes and suddenly you have a whole new sense of self-confidence, the stuff you need to chase those dreams. Speaking of which…

5. Make your dreams come true!

Most coaches I’ve come across, start on a three month, or twelve-week, program, broken down into various sessions, workshops and check-ins.

For me, before my first session with my coach, I was asked to create a detailed vision of where I wanted to be in three months, considering where I was at the time and the elements of my life (and career) I wanted to focus on.

I invite you to do the same, right now. Envision your life three months from now and where you would like to be; mentally, physically, professionally. These are your goals.

Now, remind yourself that the next three months will pass, whether you are working towards your goals or not. You can choose to keep plodding along as you are or you can choose to take it up a level and try something new. Honestly think what have you got to lose? What have you got to gain?

Before you know it you’ll be making more money, feeling amazing in your own skin, starting your own business- whatever your dream, put in the work, find the support and it will come true!

Finding the Best Coach for You

They say when the student is ready the teacher will appear (cheers Buddha), and this was the case for me, however, I do recommend doing a little research of your own before jumping into a potentially lengthy, expensive coaching program.

Think, are you a person who prefers one on one interaction or do you work better in a group setting? Are you going to benefit more from an online program with little personal interaction or a series of face to face (albeit probably over Zoom) meetings?

Most coaches have a website, a social media page, client testimonials and maybe even a podcast which is a great way to get a sense of who they are and what they practice with their clients. Also before embarking on your coaching journey, most coaches will offer a free discovery session where you can ask any important questions and get to know each other a little.

So shop around, listen to some podcasts and find the person that feels best for you, because just like any significant relationship in your life, when you know, you know!

Original Article: https://medium.com/journey-to-self/5-reasons-to-hire-a-life-coach-16238faf98dc