Life Coaching

Coaching: Reflective Collaboration to To Help You Move Toward Better, Faster, Forward

WHAT IS COACHING?

Life Coaching is a collaborative process between a client and a professional coach where the client is totally in charge of the conversation and the topics, but the coach listens, interprets, supports, and asks questions. A lot of variation can happen from one session to another and attempting to capture the essence of this process to explain it rarely does it justice. Essentially though, coaching is all about helping a client clarify, question, and meet their goals to achieve their best life faster – coaching can maximize who a client truly wants to be as the secret squirrel ultimate goal of coaching is TRANSFORMATION.

Academic Life Coaching, by the way, is life coaching focused a bit more on the stressors and challenges faced by college students, including time, stress and energy management, routines, creating support, and motivation (among a variety of other topics). John Andrew Williams, a Master Coach and the founder of AcademicLifeCoaching, calls life coaching “the practice of helping others clarify desired outcomes and design systems and habits to achieve them.”

Essentially coaching can help people truly focus and achieve whatever they want. ANYTHING THEY WANT. Isn’t that exciting? Here’s some more info about COACHING and finding your own coach.

In several studies across 2 and 4-year colleges, life coaching has been shown to increase student success by boosting students’ retention, persistence, and eventually their completion, even years after the coaching has taken place. Coaching can actually help people increase their GRIT.

WHO MIGHT BENEFIT FROM COACHING?

Anyone can benefit from getting coaching, but it seems to be more effective with students who start early in the semester and/or students who really want to succeed. Many of my students want to get some coaching half or three-quarters of the way into a semester after they’re really struggling. Coaching is always helpful, but in the end it is up to students to do their own work. Coaching doesn’t just make responsibilities go away.

WHAT DO COACHES DISCUSS?

Clients are always in charge. Coaches discuss only what clients want, but coaches are curious. They use curiosity to notice when a client shares the same self-defeating language or keeps only mentioning one course of action. They listen carefully and are most helpful with topics connected to goals, struggles, self-improvement, or anything connected to growth or mindset. Coaches also often specialize in different tools and toolsets, including forward-thinking visualizations, systems analysis, transitions, relationships, communication, or productivity. I personally love the power of working with the “Inner Critic” and “Future Self,” but these are just two of hundreds of frameworks coaches might use. After coaching, most clients feel more in control of their lives and have more clarity about WHAT they want and HOW to get there.
Some clients get their homework done faster. Some manage their time better. A few communicate better with difficult people like bosses or, ahem, frustrating family members. Most can clarify what they want out of college, and many discern better paths to real motivation. Many topics make good discussion material for a coaching session. Many even process with me, get to the clarity, and then decide not to do the work… YET. That’s okay too. I try not to judge. Clients get to live their lives – coaches show up how the client asks or needs (to the best of our abilities). One personal share: because I did not have enough of these in college, I personally love showing up as an encourager and cheerleader if that is what my clients need.

WHAT IS COACHING LIKE?

An average coaching session may last from 30 to 60 minutes (either face-to-face or over the internet through videoconferencing software like Zoom or Teams) as a collaboration between a client and her/his coach. A coach isn’t out to teach or instruct or judge, and everything is confidential.

In the first part of the session, the coach and client work together on an agenda, or the main topic and focus for the session. Then the client starts, and the coach assists the client with their work by asking powerful questions, reflecting language, challenging the client, and managing the process. Coaching is a fun and collaborative brainstorming process that can help increase effectiveness, resilience, initiative, and accountability.

DALLAS COLLEGE STUDENTS VS. NON-DC CLIENTS

I coach Dallas College students, staff, faculty, and administrators for free. My students can ask me after class, come by during my office hours, or email me for appointments or questions.

I also provide trainings on the Eastfield Campus to other Academic Life Coaches and those who wish to learn more about my “Coaching in Short Conversations” or “Coaching in Longer Conversations” Trainings. I can even bring some of these Professional Developments to other campuses for a nominal fee.

If you’re interested in receiving coaching, but you aren’t currently a Dallas College student, email me for my pricing. A one hour coaching session can average between $120 and $200 (or higher for master coaches – they’re like having personal Yodas.) The best option, for a number of reasons, is a package of 3, 4, 6, 8, or 10 sessions. First, there’s a discount for each session in a package.

Even more importantly , coaching over a number of sessions allows for a lot more time and flexibility so that we can get more done with even less time. By the end of our time together, hopefully I’ll help you transition to a place where you can coach yourself and find your own accountability buddies when necessary.

Coaching is a powerful tool that can help clients get to the life they want faster. Remember, though, that if clients really want something, a good coach will push them (with words) toward it and will follow up.

Here’s a phrase I sometimes use with clients who know what they want but struggle to make things work: “If life plans aren’t working how you want, change your actions or change your goals. What do you really want? What are you willing to do to get it?”