Our beliefs make us who we are, and who we are not. Curly Martin, author of The Life Coaching Handbook, suggests that understanding how beliefs are formed is necessary to being an effective life coach. “You have created, and continue to create, an image of yourself that is based on the attitudes of other people. It is an image that can either help or hinder the development of your potential and it changes with circumstances and situations.” The authority figures in your life, from parents to peers, influenced the development of your beliefs – and these are some very fundamental... (Read More ...)

Life may be a puzzle, but death is truly unknown. People tend to fear the unknown, so it’s no wonder that most of us are anxious about this final moment and whatever may come after it. Two friends of mine have had to face mortality this month due to cancer. I am incredibly amazed at how well they are facing it. They are with the experience and moving through it as gracefully as they can. It is heartbreaking to hear this kind of news and be unable to change the facts, but they are facts. If we avoid the biological truth that our physical bodies can get sick and will eventually stop functioning,... (Read More ...)

Anger is an issue to which many people seek help. It is also a subject that may come up in your life coaching clients. Fortunately, there are many ways to cool or redirect anger, and I’ll discuss a few of the better ones in this article. The first step to resolving anger is to understand it. Anger is an evolutionary response to a threat. Adrenaline production increases and fight-or-flight reactions set in which, although these will negatively affect your short-term health over time, they also help you survive in a hostile world. In the past, when a fight-or-flight reaction happened to... (Read More ...)

Guidance is a crucial mentoring skill The first thing many people think of when it comes to mentoring skills is advice.  They assume that this is actually the definition of mentoring, i.e., giving advice to someone less experienced.  I’m here to tell you that this is not the case. Being an effective Guide to your protégé or mentee is much more powerful. By always giving the answers (advice), your protégé or mentee will not learn how to think for him or herself.  He or she will simply come to rely on you for all the answers, and often blindly accept them as fact.  Can you imagine if... (Read More ...)