Take a moment and imagine.
Imagine that your life and everything in it is going exactly the way you want it to. You love your job, you love your personal life, you’re content and happy in every area! Like many celebrities and Fortune 500 executives, to achieve this level of success, one of the tools in your success kit is probably working with a professional life coach.
You may be asking “so what makes working with a professional life coach so great?!”
One of the answers is accountability.
What does accountability from a professional life coach look like?
A professional life coach is an independent third party person who will encourage you. They will also hold you accountable for the steps to success you declared that you’re going to take. Please understand that this isn’t the type of accountability that is exercised in a relationship with a parent, your boss, your spouse, or with a mental health professional.
A coach will partner with you to help you uncover fears and define goals. From whatever starting point is established, you both will work together to identify your path to success bit-by-bit. Rome was not built in a day and this process will not happen overnight. Effective partnership with a professional life coach will help you to chunk down whatever areas need to be addressed in your life — in a manner that resonates and challenges you.
For example, say you book a session with a professional life coach and want to move forward in your career. Some of the areas that come up in your sessions include:
- Level of education,
- Professional appearance,
- Self-confidence issues,
- Effective upstream management (a.k.a. knowing how to manage your manager),
- Communication, and
- Clarity around what success looks like for the client.
Each of these areas will need a defined goal. Each goal will then have accompanying action steps that need to be completed by you to reach the bigger goal. Make no mistake, these are not goals and action steps defined by the professional life coach. Any goals or action steps have been defined by you! Some action steps may overlap. However, whatever is determined by you and understood by your coach is what you will be held accountable for. Remember, any change requires action on the part of the person who desires that change.
Let’s continue with our example…
So you decide the first area that you want to focus on is self-confidence. A professional life coach will do two main things:
- ask powerful questions that allow you to come up with a defined goal, and
- dig deeper to provide you with the space to come up with action steps to meet that defined goal.
As you work with your coach and masterful questions are being posed, you have the revelation that your self-confidence issues are based on not being able to ask for what you want without feeling guilty. Bingo, you’ve identified the issue and know your goal is to have more self-confidence in work situations!
Some actions steps that you may come up with could be:
- learning how to ask for what you want at home (i.e. help with chores from your kids or spouse),
- learning how to say no in your personal life, and
- starting to take more time for yourself each day.
Action steps like this will help you to build your self-confidence.
How is accountability between a client and a professional life coach implemented?
The short answer is through conversation. At the start of a session, one of the many things your professional life coach will do is ask about the progress towards your goals. Be honest and open at this moment. There is no need to lie to yourself or your coach. Sometimes when progress isn’t occurring it’s because the goal that you’ve selected really isn’t resonating with you at the moment.
And that’s ok!
Your professional life coach wants you to have the best possible outcome for you. No fear or worry should be present and (trust me on this one) they won’t be mad at you. Hesitation, procrastination, or lack of desire towards a stated goal is very revealing. This usually means that you and your coach need to dig deeper.
Using the example from earlier this means that means
Conclusion
You’re already powerful and you’re already great. Working with a professional life coach will only help you to unleash the potential that’s already there! The only difference is that an independent 3rd party will be helping you to:
- define your goals,
- define the action steps necessary to meet your goals, and
- asking questions around the completion of those action steps to ensure you stay on track.
Are you serious? Do you think you’re ready to take the plunge and work with a professional life coach? Let me know in the comments below!
Other blog posts of interest:
♦ Secret Reasons Why Professional Coaches Are NOT Calling You Back
♦ Overcoming Self-Sabotage: 3 Steps to Take Today
♦ What to Expect: When Working With A Professional Life Coach
