Life Coaching is for Everyone
Life coaching has proven to be an effective helping modality in supporting almost anyone who has goals they want to achieve. As life coaching has grown in popularity, it also has become more specialized. You can find coaches to help you with your finances, health and wellness, career, relationships, parenting, planning for life after retirement, spirituality, education and business. In fact, whatever your goal is, it’s likely there is a coach out there who can support your efforts to accomplish it.
But what if the perfect coach for you does not live in your area? Or, worse yet, you live in an area that is too far away from any life coaches?
You may be surprised to discover that many life coaches offer their services to remote clients through phone calls or video conferencing. In fact, the vast majority of my clients live in other states and therefore our work together is exclusively over the phone and via e-mail.
You might be asking yourself “Well, just how effective can working with a coach over the phone be? And what are the benefits of remote coaching?” The answers may surprise you!
The Benefits and Effectiveness of Phone Coaching
There are many benefits to working with a coach over the phone:
1. You can work with your coach anywhere you have phone service - no need to skip sessions if you travel out of town for work or vacation.
2. The convenience of phone coaching is undeniable. No need to dash out of your office or home, fight traffic and pray for a convenient place to park. Simply pick up your phone and make the call!
3. Phone coaching sessions are much easier to fit into your schedule due to the conveniences noted above.
4. Phone coaching sessions are much more focused. Coaching begins immediately as opposed to arriving to an office and getting settled after traveling to the session. And there are no distractions - your coach is completely focused on you.
But just how effective is working with my coach over the phone?
In a word - very! I have had clients who have engaged in both phone and in-person coaching and in almost every case, our phone sessions are more focused, digging deeper and taking the client farther than when we work together face to face. There are fewer distractions and some people report feeling more comfortable revealing their thoughts and feelings to a person who isn’t actually looking at them.
This is not to say a coach can’t pick up on what is happening with their client during a phone call. Highly trained, experienced and intuitive coaches can gather as much non-verbal information over the phone as they can face-to-face as clients’ emotions and thoughts are communicated through rate and tone of speech, pauses and various other sounds. Communication is also more clear as the coach much check out verbally what is happening with the client as opposed to making assumptions based on visual information.
Now, Everyone can Work with a Life Coach
You really have no excuse not to get started on your goals through working with a coach. Regardless of where you live or work, you can access the services of any coach in the US or across the globe through the convenience of phone or video coaching. If you don’t know where to start, check out noomii.com, an online directory of over 6700 coaches organized by specialty and location.
Sarah VanderMeiden, M.S., BCC is a Board Certified Coach with over 30 years of experience helping people effectively navigate the challenges of life and accomplish their goals. Learn more at sarahvandermeiden.com.
