Life coaching is another modality of mental health therapy; only less intense than traditional psychotherapy. When we speak of anxiety, anger management, depression, etc., these are issues that call for the services of a psychotherapist to help people feel better about their lives and have better relationships with others. However, while the process of a person being able to resolve these issues is progress in and of itself, it is not progression. Progression entails achieving a level of maturity in any facet of one’s life, whether it be in a marriage, parenting, or in a profession. More and more people are recognizing the need to make improvements in all facets of their lives and the need for the services of a life coach.
Nothing stays the same forever, and as creatures of habit, we have a tendency to remain stuck in the same patterns of thinking and behaving, while circumstances around us change and call for a different type of thinking and behaving. It is also not unusual for people to remain the same, even though they are caught up in an environment that calls for new thoughts and behaviors and they recognize that change in their lives is needed.
An example of a change many people struggle with is seen in parenting, such as needing to adjust your parenting style as your child transitions through puberty. It is not unusual for parents to continue treating or attempting to treat their fourteen-year-old as an eleven-year-old, until they are hit over the head with the reality that there is a pronounced detachment between them and their child.
Marriage provides another example. The needs of your spouse change as the years go by, and most marriage troubles arise from one or both spouses attempting to achieve the same level of happiness while thinking and behaving in a manner their partner no longer responds to.
Parenting and marriage coaching should not be confused with marriage and family counseling, where the mental health issues of one or more persons are having a negative influence on the dynamics of the relationship (such as physical abuse, sexual abuse, personality disorders, drug and alcohol addiction, etc.).
Life coaching is also especially effective for progression in one’s career. If you mentally step back and look at our national and global financial crisis, you will realize that the demand for some specific goods and services has changed; this will call for most workers to change the type of goods and services they provide, which will in turn call for a change in skills. Most workers who have found themselves on the unfavorable side of the recession knew of the changes they needed to make in their professional lives, yet none was made as they were intimidated by the idea of change, or more commonly, they didn’t know how to change.
Life coaching is not an exotic service reserved for the rich; engaging the services of a professional life coach is a wise investment anyone can make in his or her life.
Ugochukwu Uche MS, LPC
Ugo is a psychotherapist and a professional life coach
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