Life coaching depends fundamentally on the relationship between the coach and the client.
Unlike mentoring, consulting, and therapy and other healing modalities, in life coaching the coach relates to the client as a partner and not from a position of authority, as expert or as healer. This means that the client is expected to be an active participant in the coaching process, and to take co-responsibility for determining the particular focus, format, and desired outcomes of the work. You should not expect the coach to hand you advise or solutions on a silver platter, but you should expect to work with your coach to generate ideas that may lead you closer to your agree outcomes.
A successful coaching programme is one that leaves the client with a greater capacity to produce results and a greater confidence in his or her ability to do so. A key ingredient of the coaching process is increasing a client’s ability to self-observe. In this regard, you should expect to start taking note of things that happen in your life and your own reactions.
Once a client is better able to take an objective look (without judgement!) at his or her own behaviour and the possibilities that are opened up or closed down by this, then he or she can start to develop the capacity to consider alternative ways of reacting.
Here again, the client and coach work together closely to create possibilities for action that will allow the client to actively try out different ways of responding – and to experience what changes for them as a result. Physically trying out different ways of responding is what results in sustainable change.
Finally, the client should never be left with a feeling that they need to rely on the coach in order to produce similar results in the future. By experiencing the coaching process, the client becomes more competent in initiating this process for him- or herself, better able to recognise non-constructive behaviour patterns as they arise and to initiate actions themselves to change them.