If, as you’re reading this, you sense that I’m preoccupied, it’s because I’m trying to prevent my throat from constricting as I write.
You see, I’ve just completed a sample session with life coach Lisa Hänel of St. Albert-based Leapfrog Coaching. We’ve noticed that my throat tenses up when I think or talk about things that bother me, like way deep down inside.
One of the triggers that chokes me up is the fact that, as a hard-nosed news reporter, I’m not often able to inject “my own personal uniqueness” into my writing. So my homework assignment is to insert more of myself into this story and keep on alert for any throat tightening.
Of course, for the sake of fulfilling my job requirements, I’ll also include quotes from sources and some factual information. Gak! Throat constricting! Must relax … and … be … unique.
Like many people, I associate coaching with organized sports so the idea of getting coached in life is new. Here’s how it works.
I’m perched somewhat nervously on a chair in Hänel’s sunny Braeside studio. I’ve just completed a self-assessment of my satisfaction level with various areas of my life, like career, health and personal growth. All my scores are healthy.
But now Hänel is probing my thoughts with one of her main coaching tools — “powerful questions” such as what motivates you deeply, what lights you up inside and what’s holding you back?
It’s only been 10 minutes but Hänel is already peering into my soul. She’s in tune with my body language and pounces on the slightest hint of tension.
“What’s happening to your throat right now?” she queries.
“I don’t know. It feels normal I think. Did it constrict?”
“I had a sense that something was tightening a little bit,” she says.
Later on, she catches me feeling uplifted while talking about a personal writing project.
“When you speak about it your whole being lights up,” she says.
Hänel has been doing this for four years. It’s a business that puts her in touch with people’s emotions but also requires that she help them lay out practical steps toward achieving their goals.
“A first step of working with a coach is to find out what your values are and what motivates you deeply and set up goals and intentions from that,” Hänel says.
These goals can vary greatly depending on the client. For example, she had a client whose goal was to move abroad to attend university and begin a career while a different client wanted to communicate openly with her family for the first time.
There’s some overlap between coaching and counselling, but the coach’s role is more about helping the client move forward, Hänel says. And unlike the dynamic that exists between a therapist and client, the coach isn’t the expert in the room.
“I don’t lead clients,” Hänel says. “They tell me where they want to go and then we work on that.”
As a profession, life coaching has only been around for about 15 years. It’s a field that carries a stigma but is slowly gaining acceptance and popularity, its practitioners say.
“It’s not just for people who have a difficulty or a challenge,” Hänel says. “It’s for people that are successful and they want more. They want to move more into fulfilment. They want to move into their greatest potential.”
The process involves regular conversations either in person or by phone, to assess how the client’s homework has gone and to map out actions to focus on until the next check-in.
Some people feel that a goal reached with the help of a coach is somehow tarnished because it wasn’t achieved independently, but this belief demonstrates a misunderstanding of what coaching is actually about, Hänel says.
“Healthy people have coaches. It’s actually a sign that you’re invested in making the best life possible,” she says.
For Loida Lumanlan, a 50-year-old realtor who’s been a client of Hänel’s for more than a year, the value of coaching is the clarity, the honesty and the accountability the coach provides.
Lumanlan’s time as a client has helped her decipher why she used to be chronically late and prone to lavish spending.
The service costs her $300 a month, which some people view as a luxury since she’s not a high-performance athlete, but Lumanlan thinks life coaching is so essential that it should be part of employment medical benefits.
“Having a life coach is like [hiring] a trainer for exercise or seeing a nutritionist,” she says. “It’s nutrition for your head.”
The main benefit from coaching is clarity, agrees Desiree Mills, a 32-year-old Spruce Grove realtor.
She sought a coach when she was trying to change her approach to business while also working through a divorce.
“If you shake your life up like a snow globe it’s nice to have a beacon of light to remind you what your focus is,” she says.
Mills feels her coach helped her inject more of her personal values into her business. While not everyone understands the value of a coach, for her it’s a no-brainer.
“A good coach in sports brings out the best in you — helps you improve your game. What bigger game is there than life?” she says.
Anne Leth, 45, says her coach helped her deal with the fear she felt when pursuing an important career change.
“I would always be in the process of amassing information and planning and planning but not actually taking the steps to move more in that direction,” she said.
Her coach helped her assemble a detailed, step-by-step roadmap then provided an accountability factor that is often lacking from supportive family.
“It’s a different kind of support … more structured and action-oriented,” Leth says.
She stresses that most of the responsibility for successful change lies with the client.
“I need to be ready and willing to do the work and make a change. She’s just there to help direct that,” she says.
Anyone can call themselves a life coach, but reputable coaches have extensive training and certification, says Laurel Vespi, a St. Albert resident who runs Stone Circle Coaching. She’s a member of the International Coach Federation. Founded in 1995, the federation sets standards and provides independent coaching certification.
Like Hänel, Vespi was trained at the Coaches Training Institute, a California-based organization that’s been around for 15 years.
Clients should ask any potential coach about their training and experience and set up a preliminary conversation to see whom they click with, the coaches say.
Vespi has found that her approach appeals mostly to women between 35 and 60, the type of person who watches Oprah, she says.
“Often clients come because, if they could have made this change without support, they would have done it,” Vespi says.
“Fear is often the reason why people come,” she adds. “You’re laying there thinking, oh my God, what if [life] just stays like this?”
Life coaches aren’t cut from the same cloth as the stereotypical voice raisers associated with the sporting world.
“I have never yelled at a client,” Vespi says. “Sometimes we have some bold conversations. That’s what I like to call them — bold.”
The bottom line is helping people get the most out of life.
“We’re at a point in our society where okay is the new great,” Vespi says.
She thinks people should aim higher.
“Great is great,” she says. “You only have one life.”
Before I sign off, in order to please my coach and pass my homework assignment, I feel the need to inject one last bit of personal uniqueness into this article. Here it is: “The stupidity and shackles of youth and truth respectively have found and bound me.”
That’s a line from a song I once tried to write but never finished, a line that has no home. It’s my favourite thing out of everything I’ve ever written and I’ve never shared it with anyone.
Wow, my throat is like way loose right now.
