September 1999
By Margaret Merton

I knew things were bad when I was in the shower trying to make a decision about whether to finish my degree, get a haircut, find time to get to the gym, have a massage, return a number of phone calls from neglected friends or have a child. As I recounted this to my hugely successful friend whose nailpolish is never chipped, she said that what I needed was a life coach. The only frame of reference I had for the word coach was an evil swimming instructor who used to pour a saucepan of boiling water into the 50 metre pool and say "Now get in - the water's warm".

The term life coaching' sounds a little embarrassing, like admitting that you still don't know how to tie up your shoelaces, or you don't understand why the shop assistant just cut up your credit card. Life coaching implies that you need help with managing the myriad of difficulties that confront us each day. It's also one of those terms that sounds like some wacky new age-y practice that is designed to separate the gullible and needy from the money in their wallets.

It's a phenomenon that is growing in popularity around the globe in such places as England, Russia, Australia and the US. In the Sydney Morning Herald earlier this year, personal coaching was ranked as the second fastest growth industry in the US, after Information Technology. A quick survey of websites reveals that this is indeed an emerging industry and with all new ideas, it has its fair share of cockeyed optimists assuring us that for $800 You Can Live Your Life To Its Fullest Potential! Personal development promoters are fond of the capital letter. Life coach Alexie Keonov was a standout example, describing himself as a Renaissance man; a Cosmonaut, gifted athlete, self-taught artist, humanitarian and inspirational coach. Alexie yelled that I could Master your Emotions! Improve Self Esteem! Function at your Peak in Business and Personal Relationships! Bring Out the Best in Yourself! Make the Most of Any Situation with One on One Life Coaching!. Other sites advertised life coaching from a biblical perspective (I guess Christians need a little extra help too), but my favorite was Aboodi Shaby who runs Wonderful Life Coaching. Aboodi has moved from marketing to life coaching on the wings of inspiration from, he claims, such obvious sources as Van Morrison, Werner Erhard and Anais Nin. As you do.

Not all life coaches are selling a load of old bollocks though. Back on planet earth David Rock, one of the founding directors of the Sydney based company Results Coaching Systems explains the phenomenon. "Its a synthesis of the best elements of business, sports and personal development".

Unlike the group approach to personal development used by such organisations as Forum and Landmark which promised self improvement over a weekend, life coaching works with the individual. Instead of people assembling in large groups to participate in a kind of ultra therapy for 48 hours, emerging all new and shiny and balanced on a Sunday night, with life coaching you get one on one support for reaching a set of realistic goals. While some people got a lot out of the group experience, many were suspicious that group hugs would not make up for distant parenting. David Rock acknowledges the limitations of personal development groups. "There can be a bit of a stigma associated with things like personal development. After many years of doing self development workshops he'd had enough. "I think I'd done just one too many". His inspiration for setting up his life coaching company was born of his dissatisfaction with the group nature of most self development workshops. "I realised that where the breakthroughs really happen for people was when they were one on one". With this revelation, he set about working with people as a life coach, with an emphasis on taking the weirdness out of self development and making it accessible to anyone who wanted to improve their lives in a realistic way.

For three years Rock worked as a life coach with a diverse group of clients. During this time he practised and refined his skills and techniques. "I pulled together the best thoughts from sports, like goal setting, business strategies and things from personal development like feedback, listening and mentoring principles". With this extensive tool box, his client list grew and happy clients indicated his techniques were working. He wrote a 12 week program and this forms the structure for the life coaching approach used at Results. The next obvious step was to train life coaches. "I worked with people for quite some time and it got to a point where it was clear that I should train other people to do this". Joined by his wife Lisa and a third partner, a training program was written and the first trainee life coaches started their course in April 1998 .

Life coaching itself is an elegantly simple idea. Based on the premise that better results are had by working with people individually, a client is put in touch with a life coach. Together, client and coach work on establishing a set of goals. For the next 12 weeks, the coach supports and facilitates the client to reach these goals. It's sort of like paying someone to nag, prod and pester you. But, unlike your parent, you're paying them. The first session is free so clients have the opportunity to decide whether they want to continue. "In the first session you actually work out what you'd like to work on and the coach is just there to guide you and help you distill what you are interested in at the moment Rock explains. This isn't as easy as it sounds, however. "It's not an easy process setting goals", Rock continues. "The kind of level that we work at really does stretch people and we regularly achieve 100 percent of the goals that we set".

This success has already touched a lot of peoples' lives. The Rocks are full of stories about their clients meeting their goals and moving forward in their lives as a result. One client, an actress, scored a role opposite a leading Australian movie star, another ended up in a long term relationship after being single for ten years. Yet another doubled her income during the twelve week process. "Having to take things more seriously is the secret to success in life coaching", Lisa Rock explains. "It's empowering for people to see their own path".

Like all good things, there are some prerequisites for getting the most out of life coaching. You have to want to change and be ready to make the commitment to having someone politely push you in the right direction. You have to be prepared to take responsibility for your actions or your inability to get things done. This is a system for people who are ready to be honest with themselves and take on board the feedback from the coach. David Rock explains that this is not for the fainthearted. "You have to be well. We're not fixing people, we're not therapists and we're not a shoulder to cry on. We're the last place people want to go if they're not well. We'll be prodding them and pushing them.

Rock explains that coaching is for people who want to achieve that bit extra in their lives. "What is common in all people who have a coach is that they believe they are capable of more than they are currently achieving and are willing and interested in what its going to take to bridge the gap. Whatever the gap is, they just know they are capable of more and they kind of feel it but they've hit a plateau".

Most of us, if we're honest with ourselves, reach a point in our lives when we feel that we have stalled somewhat, or may have an inkling of what we'd like to do, but can't quite see a way of navigating our way towards it. I decided to have a first (free) session with a life coach to see what it was like. The Rocks suggested I see life coach Dr Mark Naim. A practising GP in the eastern suburbs, he got involved after reading about life coaching in a Sunday paper supplement. Impressed by the techniques and approaches, he signed up for the training program and loves being a coach. "It's a unique situation where an individual totally forgets their own life and devotes themselves exclusively to someone else". The training process was challenging. "It was intensive, scary, confronting, exhilarating". Naim found that while he worked with people in a one on one situation in his work, the life coaching approach challenged his ideas of how to work with people. "I found out that it wasn't that easy and it had a different slant to the way I do things. In medicine in general, the expectation is that you get in there and fix it for somebody else. In coaching, you don't fix it for them, you show them how they can fix it themselves. This shift in approach has had a beneficial impact on all aspects of his life, including his family relationships.

But back to me. I met Naim for an hour in a Double Bay coffee shop, and was actually on time ( I'm never on time, unless I know the drinks will run out quickly), so this was a good start for getting my life into order. During our discussion, we narrowed areas of my life down to some goals that we could work on for the twelve week program. The emphasis was very much on me working out areas I wanted to address and Naim mainly asked questions. The effectiveness of this approach was that I felt greater ownership of these ideas than I would have if my mother had told me these were things I should address (as she has been known to do). I left feeling optimistic and surprisingly calm, with a sense that I had a way forward into meeting these goals we had talked about.

This is really where life coaching works. It's a system where the individual and a trained life coach spend an hour a week focussed exclusively on the client's goals and how to reach them. For most of us, this is a real luxury. Rock agrees. "The coach is filling a gap for a lot of people - the coach has no other agenda, whereas sometimes friends may have an agenda. Friends often won't say something because they're concerned about how it will land".

In the past, when we lived in extended families, people often had more access to mentor figures, perhaps an older aunt who was wise and gave good advice and always told the truth as she saw it. We often don't have access to these qualities of relationship any more. If we're lucky, we might have a mentor at work, but, like friends and family, there are always other agendas operating. Self help literature is full of lofty notions about following your heart, finding your true self, improving your self esteem. The list, and the market for it, are endless. The simple truth is that most of us feel good when we achieve something we didn't think we could do.

Like any self help system, it is important to shop around. If you are thinking of finding a life coach, ask about how the coaches are trained, their background and what success they have had with previous clients. Life coaching, like any other system such as therapy and personal development workshops, is not the answer to everything, but it does provide a framework for action, and it's often simply getting things done and seeing the results that will help us on our way to Improving our Lives and Feeling Better about Ourselves! And, hey, I won't even charge you for that piece of advice. These next two sections are for the boxes. They tell the stories of two women who completed life coaching with Results.

DOMINIQUE OGILVIE

Dominique Olgilvie, Fashion Agent, found out about life coaching through a friend. Ogilvie decided to investigate. "I was curious, I thought it would be fun. I'm always interested in different ways of setting goals and achieving them". Her main focus was on her business which involves being a fashion agent for leading Sydney designers. "My goal was to increase my business by fifty percent in one season. Which is three months in my business". Her other two goals were related to her personal life. Increasing any business by fifty percent in three months is a big ask, but her life coach was not daunted by this. Even Ogilvie didn't think it could be done. "I fought and struggled with them and said there is no way I can increase my business by fifty percent". As it happened, she was right. But she did increase her business by thirty eight percent.

For Ogilvie, the whole experience was great. "I loved it. I found it very challenging and confronting in some ways. It made me do things I knew I should do". She sums up the most important aspect she got out of being coached. "If there's one phrase that sums up what coaching does it's this: it makes you go from knowing it into doing it". She also found that coaching helped her maintain focus. "It makes you far more focussed on achieving your goals and you think laterally".

The focus on outcomes suited Ogilvie. "The other thing I like about life coaching is that everything is measurable and I like to be measurable". Meeting goals each week also meant that she and her staff could celebrate their achievements. "At the end of the week we could treat ourselves to something because we achieved our goals". Life coaching also gave her the space of looking at her business more strategically, rather than getting caught up in the everyday tasks where it's so easy to lose perspective. Some of the things that came out of the group coaching have become a part of her business practice. She now has much more information about her clients and biggest buyers which is invaluable knowledge for improving business

The effects continued well after the coaching had ended. One of her other goals was to buy a building she could both run her company from and live in. Earlier this year she bought a building in Woollahra and is planning to book another program of life coaching for her staff. In the past, Ogilvie had done lots of personal development groups, but life coaching is the system she strongly recommends. "It's a very practical and down to earth approach". She feels comfortable talking about doing life coaching. "You know how you go and see a financial planner, well it's the same thing but it looks at the goals you set. It's one hour a week and it just keeps you on track".

BRIDGET ARNOTT

Bridget Arnott is a photographer who first heard of life coaching after a friend of hers got his act together through life coaching and bought a house in New Zealand. Amazed that he had done this, Arnott decided to give it a go as well. "I decided to do it because I have problems organising myself and I do a lot of procrastination. This sounded like a really good thing, it wasn't a one hit thing where they get you all motivated to do all this work, it was more that they helped you on a week to week basis".

For Arnott, the kind of people who would benefit most are those with self discipline issues. "I think its really good for people who don't have self discipline. You've got this person ringing up and nagging you and is really strong with you saying hey do this this week and why haven't you done that, without being rude. The life coach helped me set up plans for the week".

She worked with her life coach on three goals. "One was to increase my business, the second was to have a lot more energy in my day to day life and the third one was to have a photography exhibition". She met the first 2 goals, but the last one has suffered some setbacks that were beyond her control, but her work is currently being assessed by a gallery at the moment. "This was the hardest thing I could have possibly considered".

She enjoyed the experience, but found it challenging. "Sometimes it was really not enjoyable at all, especially when you have to say I didn't actually do that and you get roused on in a mature way." She found that she learnt a lot about herself during the twelve weeks. "You'd realise some of the emotional things that hold you back". For Arnott, the experience covered both the ground of what she was doing in an everyday sense as well as emotional territory that was enlightening in the way it highlighted negative patterns of behaviour that she could then change. "Just from someone who is being honest, not necessarily from someone psychologically trained. A best friend would never give you the real truth. It's a real honesty I suppose that we don't really get from family and friends that is really good, really down to earth".

One of the biggest realisations she had was that she didn't take herself seriously enough in her business. "There are so many realisations that happen along the way through doing these quite simple exercises. Things like I never realised that I didn't take myself in my business seriously and I realised I have to take myself seriously and that affects my level of work". She changed this attitude during the coaching. "My interest in my work and the standard of my work really increased. I took a lot more pride in what I was doing. I took much more ownership of my business."

Arnott has recommended life coaching to many people, particularly people who have certain goals they want to achieve. "I think that's what it's really for. People who suffer from a lack of self discipline. That's from my angle. I'm sure it could help with lots of other things. For discipline and getting things done I think that's where it really does excel. Especially for people who have their own business, it just gets them off and running".

Overall, for Arnott, life coaching was a good move at the right time. "Its about someone being honest with you. There's all these self transformation courses, and all these wonderful things saying...you're wonderful, you're a perfect person as you are and that's all useful in certain ways but when there's a job at hand and it's not getting done...it's about being hard on people where it counts, where it will actually be effective and then giving them praise where a job is well done. Its about honestly learning how to do good work".