Life coaching is especially helpful for clients who are entering a new phase in their lives. This might involve the completion of a graduate degree, relocation, retirement, post divorce planning, recovering and moving on after a significant loss, entering midlife and/or facing an empty nest or moving deeper into a committed relationship.
Life coaching encourages clients to take stock of where they are currently and what dreams and goals they have for the future. Coaching can help clients discover untapped or unused potential which may be hidden beneath layers of boredom or just existing day-to-day. What creative interests have they set aside and can they make time to pursue these? Are there health issues that are impacting their life and do they need help navigating around or through these?
Life coaching helps clients identify specific goals and design a plan for accomplishing these — whether those goals are work, family, or individually oriented. Sometimes clients want to accomplish a goal within a specific period of time, be it when their children graduate from college, when they or their spouse retire, or when they have saved a certain amount of money. Coaching can keep clients accountable for actions they need to take in order to reach their goals and it can help them explore options and arrive at new conclusions about what might be best for them.
Midlife is a natural time to seek out life coaching. I’ve worked with clients in midlife who are interested in exploring deeper aspects of themselves and re-evaluating how they’ve lived their lives or spent their energy. Sometimes this leads to career change or career expansion. Sometimes it leads to retirement!
Clients who are soon-to-be empty nesters often are too young to retire but want to do something meaningful with the intervening years. Coaching can help these clients research and identify alternatives that offer them fulfillment.
Completing an educational goal, often positions clients to take the next step in both their personal and professional lives. Coaching can help these clients begin to make plans for the next phase of their lives.
Relocation can bring many changes and stresses that create bumps in the road. Learning a new job, creating a circle of friends and a new community are all challenging. Coaching can provide an anchor in such uncertain times, helping clients navigate new opportunities and the stresses that accompany such a big life change.
Retirement is something most people look forward to, but it can bring its own surprises. Newly retired clients often struggle to fill their time and have to work on creating an identity separate and apart from who they were while they were employed. If they were workaholics and work was a big part of their identity, they may need to grieve this loss and explore who they are now, in this new era.
A loss, triggered by divorce or death, ushers in a new phase in a person’s life. Many challenges face people in these situations. It’s not uncommon for clients to feel overwhelmed and lost as they look to the future without the familiarity of the person with whom they were married or close to. In this circumstance, life coaching can assist clients to work through the feelings associated with a loss and help them plan for a future on their own.
Moving deeper into a committed relationship has repercussions for all areas of a person’s life. If there’s a plan to marry and start a family, these can trigger new opportunities as well as challenges for both partners. Life coaching can assist each person to take an inventory of what changes need to happen in themselves and in their relationship, in order to move successfully into the next phase of the family life cycle.