Would you like to make sure you maximize your finances, career, relationships and overall life opportunities? The best tool for doing that is often a swift kick in the ass that a life or career coach can provide.
How often have you set New Year’s resolutions, made a plan to start working out, decided to get your personal finances in shape or started working on moving up the corporate ladder? Did you stick with all these plans? Working with a life or career coach will help you create realistic plans and then keep checking in with you. They’ll motivate you now and then, which can be the difference between creating a dream and a daydream.
If you’ve been stalled in any area of your life, consider working with a life or career coach to bring some planning, expert resources, discipline and motivation to your long-term plans.
Career Coach
A career coach specializes in helping people meet their long-term career goals. They help set short-term, mid-range and long-term plans. Career coaches may not be experts in your industry or profession, but they’ll familiarize themselves with your field after they take you on as a client. Often with connections in your area, they draw upon their experiences with those clients, sharing with you what they’ve learned from your peers. Career coaches often touch on certain areas of your personal life, such as daily habits, but don’t delve deep into your non-work life.
Life Coach
Life coaches can help you with many areas of your personal well-being. A few of these include:
- Health
- Personal finances
- Personal relationships
- Stress
- Career
Life coaches are different from therapists in that they don’t try to analyze your psyche to solve emotional problems. Instead, life coaches focus on your goals, try to learn what’s keeping you from achieving them, create projects for you and then work with you to help you stay and track such goals. Many life coaches also include career coaching.
Objectivity
One of the biggest benefits of working with a life or career coach is the objectivity they bring. They look at you as others look at you. They avoid emotional judgments. They can spot your weaknesses and strengths based on reality, not perception.
Career coaches will compare you to other professionals in your age range and career level. They’ll look at your work habits, online presence, resume, LinkedIn profile and cover letters you’ve sent. They’ll look at your networking and professional development efforts to date, such as continuing education, conference attendance, article publishing and public speaking. This differs from life coaches, who will look at your health, lifestyle coaches, stressors, relationships and personal finances.
Expert Resources
In addition to years of experience in personal and professional counseling, life and career coaches have expert resources and tools. They know what organizations, websites, businesses, books and certifications can help you reach your goals.
For example, a life coach who’s helping you improve your personal finances can tell you where to get free copies of your credit reports, which credit cards have the best offers and how to create a plan to lower your debt. A career coach can help you find the best job sites, improve your LinkedIn profile, write better cover letters, upgrade your resume and find helpful networking events.
How Much Do Life And Career Coaches Cost?
Most coaches are independent business consultants, so their rates can vary widely. Some coaches charge by the hour, ranging from $100 to $500 per hour, depending on whether they are general life coaches or executive coaches. Executive coaches can charge as much as $10,000 per month. Some coaches even require a minimum time period for your contract so that they have a chance to show you results.
Butt-Kicking: The Biggest Benefit
Some people who use life and career coaches come to the conclusion that they already knew most of what the coach told them. However, they’d still hire the coach if they had the chance to do it all over again. Why? Quite often in life, the biggest thing that’s keeping a person from being the best he or she can be is not a lack of knowledge, it’s a lack of effort.
Hiring a life or career coach is having someone by your side to kick you in the butt and keep the pressure on you is all you need to reach your goals. Think what would happen if you hired a career coach for just one planning session. Do you think you’d continue to work on your plan by yourself, month after month, year after year, to reach all of your goals? Probably not.
Much like people use personal trainers to better their workout routine and get the most out of gym sessions, life and career coaches offer similar motivation for life and career goals. So don’t be bashful in hiring one if you think you need a little kick in the rear end.
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