Life coaching is a fascinating journey that has the potential to transform you in many ways. Although it does not involve teaching or giving advice as such, the coaching process facilitates learning essential life skills which are part of Masterful Living®:
Goal Setting
This is a classic topic in coaching. I will help you become more skilful in setting goals for your life. You will gain clarity over what you want, why you want it and how you can manifest it. The more specific and measurable your goals, the easier it will be for you to plan actions that will move you towards them. The more you connect with your goals emotionally, the more likely you are to achieve them.
Creativity
We are all creators. We have the ability to create who we are, how we want to live our lives and how to interact with others. Sometimes we do not fully realise this power of creation. We may think that we are victims of circumstances or lack control over our thoughts, emotions and behaviours. I will help you challenge those beliefs and activate your inner creator.
Communication
We communicate every day in many different settings. We all know about the importance of listening, but how often do we truly listen? How often are we already thinking about the next thing we want to say? How often do we only listen from the perspective of our own world view and values, without trying to understand those of the person opposite us? How often do we play games where we take positions like “the parent”, “the child”, the “victim”, “the rescuer” rather than meeting the other person on an adult-to-adult level? I will help you spot what is really going on in your conversations and how you can apply more resourceful ways of communication to resolve conflicts in your life.
Perspective Management
The way we perceive the world around us is imperfect. Our ability to perceive is limited by the capabilities of our senses and our minds. Our brains have to delete, distort and generalise the vast amount of information that they receive every second. Sometimes we forget that there are other ways to perceive any given situation. A one-sided perception of reality can create emotional pain and conflict with others. An essential part of my work involves the exploration of multiple perspectives of any issues. This will enable you to decide for yourself which perspective serves you best, and also to understand why other people may think and behave differently to you.
Visualisation
Any creation starts in our mind. We know this from when we were kids and played with Lego or drew pictures. We started with a vision in our mind and then created the object or drawing. Sometimes as adults we block our creativity with our analytical brains. We come up with the “buts” too soon and kill our fantasy before it can develop. When we do this, we keep our opportunities limited to what we already know will work. Yet if we keep doing the same things we are likely to keep creating the same results. I can help you use visualisation to generate new options for your life.
Love
Love is a state that can be practised. I believe that we are all love at the very core of our being, but in reality this love has been clouded by layers of painful experiences and external stresses. We all started our lives as kids who loved naturally until we experienced our first rejection, abandonment or aggression from others. We then put on protective armour that grew stronger and more effective over time. This is a natural and useful process, but sometimes this armour can disconnect us from others and make us unhappy. Love comes up in coaching sessions a lot, in particular lack of self-love. I can help you to learn how to love yourself again – and from there the people around you.
Gratitude
Gratitude is a powerful tool that can lift you from lower emotional states, such as depression or frustration, to a sense of peace, contentment and happiness. Gratitude can be practised, for example by keeping a gratitude journal. When practised regularly, it will become an automatic view on life.
Forgiveness
Any resentment that we hold on to will harm us. It is a negative energy that keeps us away from the higher emotional states of love, peace and joy. The person most likely to benefit from our forgiveness is therefore us, and the first person we need to forgive is ourselves. There are, however, various stages of forgiveness. If we forgive from a place of righteousness, we may not see the role we played in the relevant story and how the things that we perceive as painful actually benefitted us on our life journey. When we are able to see the bigger picture, we may well come to the conclusion that there is nothing to forgive and that we can thank the other person for the lessons they taught us.
Meditation
Meditation is a beautiful tool that has been practised for thousands of years in most cultures and religions. At the simplest level it supports relaxation and stress management, but it can do much more. Meditation can change the neural links in your brain, making it more resourceful and resistant to external influences. It can help you reconnect with yourself and find peace. It is also an effective platform for reprogramming yourself with new positive beliefs, and there are many other benefits. If you meditate or are interested in learning mediation, this can be used as a tool to support your coaching process in many ways.
Below is a list of the main topics that I coach on: