How a Life Coach Can Help You

In this blog I muse about sports coaching vs life coaching and the similarities and experiences I have had with both. I also share with you a deeper understanding of ways a life coach can benefit your life and why you should invest in one.

I used to always wonder why people who competed in individual sports needed a coach…..

However, I strangely never questioned those who were in team sports requiring a coach. To me, it made sense that if you were with a group of people in the same team you needed some guidance, direction and accountability to turn up to training each day or week. And it was most important to have a coach on game day to help guide you through the game to ultimately WIN. 

Isn’t this strange? What difference does it make if you are a solo athlete such as a runner, triathlete, swimmer versus someone in a basketball or soccer team?

“A coach is someone that sees beyond your limits and guides you to greatness!”

— Michael Jordan

I’m not sure if anyone else has thought this way but I soon realised, after having my own coach for an individual sport to help me achieve my goals of completing my first half ironman triathlon, just how much a coach is necessary in so many ways. For many years prior to this, I had trained myself, well I am not sure if you could call it train… It was more like, “oh so yesterday I went for a jog and today I will go for a ride…” I had no direction or goal for the session just to get out and do something. A coach not only keeps you accountable, they set you daily training to suit your needs, lifestyle and physical ability. They understand what is required to reach your goals without burning out and feeling overwhelmed.

I discovered so many benefits of having a coach for triathlons and marathons that I started to wonder how I managed without one. So then, how does a triathlon coach relate to a holistic life coach?

I discovered that in life we often fumble our way through (like I used to before my triathlon coach) and sometimes we get it right and other times we feel confused, stuck, lost direction and we don’t know what the next best step forward is. This is where the similarity comes in with a sporting coach and a holistic life coach. Both help you to set goals, bring clarity, direction, accountability and help you to be the best you can be in this game of life. 

A coach not only keeps you accountable.

They understand what is required to reach your goals without burning out and feeling overwhelmed.

A life coach helps you to balance the mind, body and spirit in order to live a calmer and fulfilling life. When we become out of balance, meaning we feel like we are struggling to keep our head above water or just not truly happy, and we are so busy we don’t have enough time. Often in this space we experience the ‘monkey mind’, we get stuck in our heads and thoughts and unable to quieten these thoughts in order to know or understand what we really want in life and how to achieve it. We start to run on auto pilot and live unconsciously day to day.

Often when we are living like this, we aren’t paying any or much attention to our bodies. After all, we have physical bodies which are designed to move. This doesn’t mean we have to spend hours running but finding something you enjoy which involves moving your body and makes you feel good! It allows you an escape from your thoughts and increasing the feel good chemicals in your body. 

So balancing the mind and the body is super important to feeling more balanced and in alignment, and this is where a holistic life coach can support you to bring more alignment into your every day life. Balancing the mind and the body was pretty easy quickly understood however, it wasn’t until I understood the importance or the awareness of the spirit that everything clicked.

Just as a sporting coach brings awareness to the athlete of balancing their training with rest and recovery, ensuring they have a balance diet and clear training plans, a life coach brings awareness of balancing the mind, body and spirit to ensure they feel ready to take on new goals, move forward in life and stop living on auto pilot. It can feel like we are constantly paddling up stream and no idea why life feels so difficult.

Hence, for me and the reason why I love what I do is because we all need guidance, help, and support in life even if we think we know what we are doing (me as a beginner triathlete). We can always do better and be better. I can help you live a life that you choose and desire.