Life coaching is a continually growing field that encompasses a vast array of objectives. People use life coaches to help set goals, build more powerful relationships, learn better communication skills, or get out of a rut.
With the popularity of life coaching on the rise, it’s not hard to find the benefits of having a coach.
What if you want to take advantage of these benefits, but don’t have the means to hire a life coach? Are you simply out of luck? The answer is no.
“Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance. It’s helping them to learn rather than teaching them.”
– Timothy Gallwey
Life Coaching Tools
Life coaches use different tools and exercises to help their clients reach their full potential. These tools can help give you insight into the the different areas of your life, your signature strengths and the way you’re using your time.
Many of these tools are easy to use and can be integrated into your current life. These tools and techniques are simple ways to help you find greater success in your endeavors and greater overall happiness.
1. Wheel of Life
“Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbour he is aiming for, no wind is the right wind.”
– Seneca
The wheel of life is a common starting point in a life coaching process. It’s an assessment tool that allows you to have a visual representation of your level of satisfaction with the different areas of your life.
It’s also useful to help identify goals if you haven’t done so yet. In simple terms, it shows you where you are and where you want to go.
Here are the instructions:
1. Draw a big circle in a piece of paper.
2. Then divide the circle into different spokes, as many as the areas of your life you want to consider (career, romantic life, finances, health and fitness, etc.).
3. Draw a line for each area of your life that represents your current satisfaction level with that area. The lowest point is 1, starting right at the center of the circle, the border of the circle will represent a 10, the maximum level.
4. Take your time to reflect on each area of your life and ask yourself: from 1 to 10, how satisfied am I with this area?
After looking at your wheel, which area stands out? What would you like to see happening? To take this exercise a step further, define goals for each of those areas.
2. Signature Strengths Exercise
The Signature Strengths Exercise is designed to highlight the strengths that we don’t necessarily recognize on our own. The Values in Action Signature Strengths test can help you discover what your strengths are. Then, you can go about putting these strengths into action.
Once you’ve identified these strengths the goal is to try to use them in new ways. They can be used to improve your life in both personal and work-related capacities depending on how you choose to implement them.
Anytime you use one of your signature strengths, you can write about the experience to help you identify what works and what doesn’t. A paper trail will also give you the means to look back at what worked and what didn’t, so you can make the most out of your strengths.
3. The Life Map
This tool helps you get clear about which behaviors are serving and allowing you to move forward towards your goals and which ones are holding you back.
Pick a day and register everything you do in that day, as follows:
1. In a piece of paper draw a table with 5 columns.
2. Write A (activity) on the first column, and briefly describe the activity below.
3. Write M (magical moments) on the second column. Regarding each activity, did you experience magical moments? Below you’ll either put an X for no, or a check mark for yes.
4. Write A (absorbing activities) on the third column. And consider whether or not each activity allowed you to fully engage and concentrate completely on it.
5. Write P (purposeful projects) on the fourth column and reflect on whether the activity allows for the development of purposeful projects. Again write an X if it doesn’t and a check mark it it does.
6. Finally, on the last column write M/L (more or less). For each activity decide if you would like to do more or less of it.
Registering this throughout the day will allow you to overcome any judgment biases and register how you actually feel regarding each activity.
This provides you with useful information about how you’re using your time and what changes could lead you to experience more positive and engaging activities in your daily life.
4. Expressing Gratitude
“Gratitude is the recognition that life owes me nothing and that all the good that I have is a gift.”
– Robert Emmons
Life coaching professionals acknowledge the importance of happiness when it comes to optimizing experiences. Gratitude is associated with happiness.
At the end of the day, looking back and finding the things you can be grateful for is one of the most basic things you can do to increase your happiness. Increased happiness leads to greater success, reduced negativity, and a better overall well-being.
Gratitude helps bring about this increase in happiness because it causes you to focus on the positive aspects of your life rather than the negatives. It also pushes you to give back to others, strengthens relationships, and reminds you to appreciate what you have.
Gratitude can keep you from becoming complacent, which promotes growth. It also helps drive away negative feelings and thoughts that tend to prevent us from accomplishing everything we’re capable of.
Time to Put These Tools to Use
Although it can often be easy to find excuses to put off the effort, these exercises and tools make it much more difficult. They require little time and are well worth the effort.
Most of these tools only need paper and a pencil to complete, and yet they offer great insights and benefits.
Using these tools will set you on a positive path forward, and will help improve your current life in a simple and concise way.
“Believe that your life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.”
– William James
Next we’d love to hear from you, what tools have you used that helped you the most? Leave a comment below.
References
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