22 August/September 1999
Get a life... coach, that is.

Unlike friends, business associates or family, a life coach has only one vested interest - seeing you access your unique potential and realise long-held dreams. VEDA DANTE

A hybrid of personal trainer, sports coach, mentor, manager and best friend, life coaching has been proclaimed as the millennium's hottest new career. Experts say it's the ultimate small business accessory; some even liken it to having a parrot on your shoulder, but why does Australia seem so keen to follow in the footsteps of the 1,900 coaches who are currently practising in the US?

Mark Naim, a Sydney GP with two decades experience and who recently graduated with Australian-based Results Coaching Systems, offers his viewpoint: "We've been through the navel-gazing, the counseling, the mea culpa; you know, all of that stuff, but I think it's an extension of the basic lack of extended family," says this committed father of four. "Because in the old days, you had grandpa, grandma, aunts, brothers and cousins all around to help you sort things out, to sort yourself out, to show you who you were, make you more of who you are. We don't have that any more, particularly in Australia, where we're an immigrant society, a splintered society. "There are a lot of people out there who are stuck, who are lost; who know where they want to go but don't know how to get there." He sighs, "and you will find a hundred variations on that theme."

It has been said that life coaching takes you from being the passenger in your life to being the driver. And like many of life's analogies, many refer to the journey as being just as memorable - if not more - as the point of arrival. The journey, in the case of Results Life Coaching, is a 12-week program where client and coach are bound by a commitment contract, which is centred around three goals. These are established and mutually agreed upon in the first session. And while life coaching has been likened to therapy it does not dive into our psyche's deep dark emotional past searching for the 'why? What it does, however, is seek to map out the future with the mantra 'how?' "As time goes by you see them [the clients jumping up and down; they're focused, they've achieved something," Mark says recalling some of his most memorable programs. A lot of energy gets put into the system and sometimes I use the metaphor of pushing the railway engine. You know, people want to move but it takes a huge amount of energy to get it going."

Coaches are the ultimate ally. Their attention is unwavering, their gale relentless. And once you've set the goals, there's no going back. It's rare that you get someone's complete focus and attention; someone who's there totally for you, on your side, encouraging you to go and get whatever it is you want out of life. The relationship between a client and a coach is a highly specific one, and the key, according to professionals, is about maintaining focus amid the chaos. "By setting goals you become task-oriented, and you have some- It's exciting to say the least.

In any given week, a Life coach could be helping a 45 year-old woman get her driver's licence, engage in some lateral thinking with a merchant banker, or help a young client trace her birth father. body who you are accountable to, who you can phone and say 'I'm stuck, I can't do this'," explains Mark. "And it's even easier than that; because the actions and so on around what you decided you want to do are your own actions. They are things you logically know you need to do. It's just a question of someone saying 'well, just go and do it!'"

Mark likens the process of life coaching to building a stepladder, where each step represents certain things one needs to do to reach the predetermined goal. "It's just planning a route and building an infrastructure, and then slowly working your way to where you want to go. So why can't we just do that ourselves? "We can," says David Rock, founder of Results Coaching Systems, "the point is we don't. If you want to get fit, you could get up at five am, three times a week - but most of us don't. However, if we take on a personal trainer, we will. It's the same thing with the coach, having someone to answer to each week gets you to do those things."