What is Life Coaching

Having a Life Coach is a positive acknowledgement that you want to achieve more from yourself and your life. It is confirmation that you want to utilise your talents and abilities to succeed at all you do. Coaching unlocks your potential, dispels feelings of discontentment and insecurity enabling you to live the life you choose rather than settling for the one you have.

Coaching for decision makers

Coaching provides invaluable support for people at all stages of their lives, for decision-makers at all levels within an organisation and to leaders at every step of the evolution of their business. Therapy Partners offer  an innotative Solution Focussed Approach (SFA)  to help you grow and achieve yiour goals.

Many people who may have achieved a level of success still struggle to find the degree of personal and professional satisfaction that they had hoped for. Being able to explore the influences that lie behind our decisions in a safe and supportive environment can help us to understand our personal drivers, and re-focus our approach with a much greater prospect of fulfilling our objectives.

Senior Executives are under increasing pressure to match the financial demands of shareholders and commissioners with the logistical, cultural and ethical demands of delivering the core business. Too often there is a limit to how much support can be provided from within the organisation along with an expectation that people working at this level will find their own solutions. Working collaboratively with a Coach can provide a confidential sounding board to work through your plans and proposals; a non-judgmental mirror to help you examine your current strengths, identify gaps in skills or experience and find the best way to overcome them; and help you plan a way forward that aligns your personal needs and desires with those of the organisation.

Therapy Partners believe Coaching can be the most important investment you can make at whatever stage of your life or career.

What Coaching can do for you

Your goals and aspirations are unique, so what we work on will be entirely directed by you. We can review the path which brought you to where you are and consider what steps you need to take to get where you want to be. 

For those in business, both private and public sector, we can consider practical issues such as organisational structures, strategic goals and development plans. We can look at other issues such as the quality of relationships at Senior Management or Board level and how these may be improved. We can explore different forms of Leadership and what this might mean for you and your organisation. Throughout our conversations we will be looking to identify potential issues which may be impeding your progress and finding ways to get around them.  

​Whatever the focus, the context will be provided by identifying your personal and professional goals and looking at how you can achieve them.

How our coaching programme works

Trusted relationships are the most important tools for coaching and so, where possible, the programme is based around face to face meetings. Each will last up for 1 to 1.5hrs, will be held at a mutually agreed venue and at a time convenient to you. If face to face meetings are not practical, then sessions can take place over a range of ‘virtual’ platforms.

This is a dynamic relationship so could be used as an opportunity to discuss events, plan and rehearse responses or actions and then review through debriefing. It is important that you feel able to discuss any aspect of your personal and professional life so confidentiality is assured through a written contract set within nationally recognised ethical frameworks.

Introduction to Relationship Coaching

Relationship Coaching involves working with two or more people whose lives are connected to improve the quality of their relationship. The main objective is to increase the effectiveness of the relationship so that all of those involved are able to achieve their individual and collective goals.

Many of the problems experienced within relationships result from people being self-focused, and not fully appreciating the needs, wants and ambitions of others. This could be because people are unable or unwilling to express them. It may also be that things have changed and the assumptions that underpin the relationship no longer reflect the reality of the current situation.

We look at the issues each person is facing and then consider how this might impact on the others. By exploring the way each person communicates we can ensure they are able to accurately express what is important to them in a way that can be fully understood.  Having a skilled coach at the table encourages people to authentically examine their wants and needs as well as their ambitions for the relationship. As all of this takes place in real time there is every opportunity to unpick the beliefs and values of each individual and consider what affect they might be having. Cultural and psychological factors can also be influential so it may be useful to take time to work out their significance within the dynamic of the relationship.

This form of coaching can be effective for people in a wide variety of relationships such as business partners or colleagues, as well as those in romantic or family relationships. It can be applied in a number of settings, wherever two or more people are committed to a shared goal.

Benefits of Relationship Coaching

The objective of this form of coaching is to make the relationship more effective. How this is defined will vary depending on the nature of the relationship and the people involved and clarifying these shared goals and aspirations is an important first step in getting any relationship back on track.

The first objective is to improve the level of understanding so that people are clear about their own needs and desires for the relationship and those of the other people. We would then look at communication and how authentically people are able to share these hopes and fears within the relationship and that each can fully appreciate the impact they have on the others. By challenging assumptions, we can ensure there is an up to date understanding of the current state of play and that everyone is focussing on the same outcomes.  It is also important that people feel able to express dissent or dissatisfaction during any discussions and so we would look to establish a mutually acceptable method for conflict to be expressed, understood and resolved.

Through this process we would expect those within the relationship to achieve clarity of purpose and shared ambitions that aim to meet individual as well as collective needs.  We would also be looking to ensure a deeper mutual understanding and a commitment to an agreed way of working so that the relationship is able to continue to evolve in response to any future changes.