Coaching

What's a Life Coach and Why Do I Need One?

A coach will help you move through mental clutter and assist you in designing a more manageable work flow by setting goals and priorities.  A coach will help you identify what you really want to achieve next and evaluate your capacities for achieving your goal.

What Does a Life Coach Do?

As a personal coach with psychotherapeutic training, Pamela D. Blair is a unique mixture of trusted advisor, strategist, friend and cheerleader with a skill-set tailored to your specific needs and circumstances. She will ask specific questions to help you define what you want in life.  In the same way a physical trainer keeps you on your chosen program of desired fitness or weight loss, Dr. Blair will hold you accountable to your personal or professional goals.  Support is offered in the form of gentle encouragement, goal setting and accountability, overcoming blocks, assessing current life paths, analyzing skills and focusing on true desires and passions.

The choice to engage a life coach is a decision to look more closely at your life as a whole.  The elements of your life:  your self, family, friends, hobbies, dreams, passions, will be evaluated separately from your business pursuits, i.e. what you do to support yourself, your short and long term goals and what you’d be doing if money were no object. 

Life can feel overwhelming at times.  The coaching process will help you remove real or imagined barriers, clarify issues, and create action plans to achieve your immediate and long term goals.

Would You Benefit from Life Coaching?

Anyone contemplating their next personal or professional move, while in the midst of life changing events such as layoff, business growth or lack thereof, divorce, empty nest syndrome or retirement would benefit.  If you have a lack of passion for life, or are feeling stuck in a decision-making process, you would benefit from coaching. 

Tips for Maximizing the Benefits of Coaching

     Be ready to answer tough questions and address difficult issues.
    Prepare in advance for each session.  Have an idea what issues you wish to address and complete assignments from the previous session.  Make notes regarding any difficulties encountered, emotional reactions and any other unexpected result, which will assist your coach in better understanding your situation.
    Designate some time each day to address the items raised in your coaching session and begin to implement the actions suggested.

Average Length of Time

Of course, the length of time required to clarify and reach your goals varies depending upon the scope of what one wishes to accomplish.  Most coaches require a commitment of two to three month’s minimum.  (And after an initial in-person appointment, phone sessions of one-half to one hour can be scheduled on a regular basis.)  Don’t expect overnight results.  Although you may notice immediate shifts in attitudes and feelings, true change requires time.  It also takes time for you and your coach to generate a close relationship and for the coach to fully understand your needs and desires.