What makes a good Life Coach?

On a day-to-day basis, coaches face many challenges. Life Coaching is an ongoing process, a method of continuous development and a significant learning experience for both coaches and clients. As a process it’s important to not be afraid of taking a wrong turn but then learn from ‘mistakes’.

The key to this is realising that these aren’t ‘mistakes’ or failings in the first place. What many people regard as mistakes are in fact lessons, experiences and opportunities to learn and develop, but because the majority aren’t aware of this they trudge through life depressed, anxious, stressed, resentful and angry.

Florence Scovel Shinn in her book ‘The Game of Life and How to Play It’ has some helpful tips to say about mistakes and learning. So does Napoleon Hill in his phenomenal book ‘Think and Grow Rich‘.

A good Life Coach must demonstrate resourcefulness and help people to see that if they think they have failed in the past, this does not need to resemble or have any bearing on their future as long as they use the learning experience in the right way.

Listening skills, holding the client accountable for any goals set and giving as much advice, knowledge and guidance to the client is a vital role of the Life Coach. To do this the Life Coach must ensure that he or she is studying the right information themselves in order to give out the right information.

There are many ways to train to be a life coach both in person and on-line. One such on-line example is iNLP Center.

In my experience as a coach I believe the biggest challenges that Life Coaches face boils down to how authentic and sincere they are, in other words is it a vocation or just a job? If it’s a vocation then great both coach and client have a real chance of success, because if a Life Coach is constantly working on themselves with the right knowledge it goes without saying that he or she will be a top of the range coach, who in turn will produce top of the range results for their clients.

If it’s just a job and the so called coach doesn’t believe in what they are doing, or just doing it for the money they won’t last very long. And that is the problem here. A lot of people think Life Coaching is an easy way to make a living and feel good about themselves. All you need to do is sit and listen to a person’s woes, offer some fluffy advice and job done.

If you have this type of attitude about Life Coaching my advice would be don’t do it!

Interested in Life Coaching ? Want to find out more?
Contact us at Irwin Edgehill Training and discuss our Life Coaching services . Email: info@irwinedgehilltraining.co.uk or call 07842 435921.

There really is a cure for workplace stress

Confident that you are getting the most from your employees?

Has staff turnover or absenteeism increased? Is staff morale low and with it productivity and creativity? Then it’s quite likely that your business is suffering from the impact of work place stress.

Having worked with a wide range of organisations for many years who have dealt with the negative effects of workplace stress, it’s a fact that those who recognise and address this increasingly common affliction get the most out of their staff.

In a recent labour force survey it was stated that:
Staff take an average of 12 sick days a year, also 60- to 80% of primary care doctor visits are related to stress, yet only 3% of patients receive stress management help (JAMA Intern Med. 2013; 173(1): 76-77).
• The American Psychological report stated that 42 % of Americans report lying awake at night due to stress.


So where do you begin?

• Firstly and most importantly recognise that emotional wellbeing of your staff is key to increasing productivity, creativity, staff retention as well as reducing absenteeism.
• Acknowledge that staff wellbeing doesn’t mean treating staff to a cake or box of chocolates every now and again or letting them come to work on a Friday dressed casually.
• Empower your staff to tell you how they really feel about the working environment, the way they are being managed or their current workload.
• Ensure that your managers are trained to understand and recognise staff wellbeing and stress in the workplace. The days of ‘just get on with it and pull yourself together’ just don’t work in today’s always on, increasingly demanding working environment.
• Realise the value and benefit of investing time and money in your employees emotional wellbeing. See it as an investment in the business as you would a new piece of machinery or marketing campaign.
• Put in place a commitment and structure were all your employees recognise the value and benefit from regular life coaching sessions that cover stress management, assertiveness, mindfulness and self-esteem.

Recognise the situation? Want to begin to introduce the cure?

Contact us at Irwin Edgehill Training and discuss our range of services and solutions we offer to organisation like yours to begin to address work place stress. Email: info@irwinedgehilltraining.co.uk or call 07842 435921.

Transforming our educational system

Now is the time to add a new lesson to a pupil’s time table. Whether at school, college or university classes on ‘Emotional Intelligence’ that focus on self-awareness, emotional control, self-motivation, empathy and relationship skills can only produce positive outcomes. What better way to transform our educational system and offer students ways to boost their learning, friendships, academic success and employment.

These lessons without doubt would help solve so may challenges facing our children, society and the education system as a whole. It will be like laying a foundation to build a house. If the foundation of a house is built on rock it can more or less withstand most storms that come its way. For our children these storms include those faced in a turbulent home, through difficult relationships with friends or family as well as struggles at school.

The foundations of Emotional Intelligence acts on the same principle. Let’s teach pupils how to:

• Manage their stress and anger
• Be more assertive in the right way
• Call on resilience when needed
• Gain confidence

By doing so pupils will find it infinitely easier to perform well in class, get good grades, build stronger and healthier relationships with their peers as well as have more respect for the teachers. Thus everyone wins. The pupil, the school, the teachers, and society as a whole.

Interested? Want to find out more?
Contact us at Irwin Edgehill Training and discuss our range of services and solutions we offer that focus on enhancing individuals Emotional Intelligence . Email: info@irwinedgehilltraining.co.uk or call 07842 435921.