Is Coaching Right for You?
My approach to coaching holds that you are the expert on you. So, ultimately, you know the answers. But there are similarities in the people who pursue coaching and have success:
- More frequent feelings of irritability
- Higher levels of stress or anxiety
- Trouble breaking habits or sticking with changes
- Dissatisfaction in personal life
- Frustration in professional life
- Creative or motivational blocks
What the Research Says about Coaching
Recent research has shown that life coaching can be beneficial in a number of areas:
- One study found that both individual and group coaching was helpful in reducing procrastination and improving goal attainment.1
- A review of studies found that health and wellness coaching showed promise for improving self-efficacy and self-empowerment.2
- A 2020 study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that coaching-based leadership interventions could be effective for enhancing well-being and improving functioning within organizations.3
- Research also suggests that life coaching can have a range of other positive effects, including improvements in personal insight and improve self-reflection. It may also help improve overall mental health and quality of life.4
As a formal field, coaching is relatively young, but it is a natural evolution of many early disciplines. It draws from leadership training, adult education, personal development and several areas of psychology, including positive psyhology.5
Life coaching formalized itself in the 1980s and continued to grow through the early 2000s to today. Some of the earliest life coaches focused on life planning, but it has grown to encompass other aspects of life including relationships, finances, careers, and overall wellness.
Sources
- Losch S, Traut-Mattausch E, Mühlberger MD, Jonas E. Comparing the effectiveness of individual coaching, self-coaching, and group training: How leadership makes the difference. Front Psychol. 2016;7:629. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00629
- Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE): Quality-assessed Reviews [Internet]. York (UK): Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (UK); 1995-. Can life coaching improve health outcomes? A systematic review of intervention studies. 2013.
- Peláez Zuberbuhler MJ, Salanova M, Martínez IM. Coaching-based leadership intervention program: A controlled trial study. Front Psychol. 2020;10:3066. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03066
- Grant AM. The impact of life coaching on goal attainment, metacognition, and mental health. Social Behavior and Personality. 2003;31(3):253-264. doi:10.2224/sbp.2003.31.3.253
- Lines D, Evans C. The Global Business of Coaching: A Meta-Analytical Perspective. Routledge; 2020.
Drop me a line!
Questions, or need more information?
I’m accepting new clients through the rest of the year.