What is Creative Coaching?
Have you ever thought: I feel stuck, I feel blocked, I want to change direction but I have no idea what to do?
Have you ever thought: if only I had more money; if only I could get my portfolio seen at the ad agencies; if only I could give up assisting; if only I had more time?
Have you ever thought: I really should update my web site; I should call that art director I met last week; I should do a lot of things, but I just don’t have the energy or drive.
Coaching can help you deal with these, and any other issues you might have in your career, or your life.
Coaching is a means of bringing clarity to your life. It is a tool that will help you unlock your innate and natural creativity.
Coaching helps you overcome the stumbling blocks that are holding you back from being the very best that you want to be.
And there’s the core of creative coaching: it’s about what you want to be. Not what your agent, your boss, your partner, your friends, or even your life coach wants you to be.
No sir, creative coaching helps you find out what you truly, madly, deeply want in your life.
And then how to get it.
The Life Coach
Think of a life coach as a trusted and unbiased friend who listens to you with deep compassion and unflinching honesty.
Life coaching is not therapy. Rather, it is for people who are stable and grounded, yet feel stuck. As a life coach, I encourage you to look at the present and the future, rather than dwelling on the past.
I use a whole bag of tools in my life coaching: Neuro Linguistic Programming, non-judgemental listening, cognitive behaviourism, incisive questioning, reframing, gentle humour and my two favourites, empathy and common sense.
I challenge clients to change self defeating, limiting beliefs and begin working on their own pragmatic programs that will move them forward to concrete goals. When they agree to this program, then I support, encourage, nudge and cajole them to carry it through.
Nelson Mandela, like so many great people, is a natural life coach, as he demonstrated in his inaugural speech:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We are all meant to shine as children do.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically releases others.“