We’re excited to have Erika Wendy Schneider as our guest blogger today. At the ripe, young age of 15, Erika wrote this thoughtful paper on Coaching for one of her classes. Her perspective has no doubt been shaped and influenced by her dad, iPEC’s Founder & Chairman, Bruce D Schneider.

Life Coaching

“Going from functional to optimal [is what it’s about],” declares Deborah Van de Grift, V.P. of  iPEC Coaching.

All forms of coaching—personal, business, and life—have been proven to work exceptionally well in the lives of individuals yearning for a chance, a change, and opportunities of various sorts. Coaching has evolved considerably over the years and never fails to impact one’s lifestyle when the client has an open mind and plenty of commitment. The right coach will help the client to a flourishing path using essential keys and building blocks to success.

Life coaching, using infiltrating techniques, indisputable focus, and accountability, is the prime method of moving on from the past, creating and indulging in long term goals, finding one’s purpose, and creating a desirable future.

“[Coaching is] an extraordinary and unique relationship designed to create a significant impact and sustainable results in all areas of a person’s life” (Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching).

While therapy and counseling concentrate on the past and how to cope, coaching is designed to assist the client in moving on from the past and looking to the future. Though coaching does recognize the past, as it’s what makes a person who they are in present day, coaching’s aim is for the client to learn from the past and transition from “why did this happen?” to “how can I learn and grow from what happened?”

Therapy aims to heal issues and create a healthy lifestyle and coaching’s focus is to take this concept to the next level, developing a remarkable lifestyle for an already healthy person.The objective is for the client to distinguish the essentiality of having goals and how they could be effectively put to use with the right attitude.

“While consulting is about the consultant delivering the right answers, coaching is about asking the right questions” (Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching).

The most important aspect of coaching is the accountability of the client. Depending on the willingness of the client, coaching will prove successful in expanding the capacity in which the client creates solutions for him or herself. The right coach—deciphered by the compatibility of each specific forte the client has—will help the client achieve enhancement of awareness and emotional intelligence while challenging his or her fundamental interpretations, conflicts within their comfort zone, and a perspective that is lacking in some significant way.

The client chooses their own goals, aided and guided by the coach, who, trained professionally into precision, will know just the right moment at the exact time to trigger an epiphany within the client and open up doors that have never been touched upon beforehand. With this, not only will the client find an abundant transition in the way s/he interacts with everyone around him/her, but how he/she sees and defines him or herself.

“My coach awakened me to discover the practical and realistic steps to actually turn my dream into reality,” says Gena Lindquist of Portsmouth, Virginia.

Finding an ideal career and taking full advantage is only one of the many accomplishments one could obtain after the process of working with a coach. In popular cases, clients will initially be reluctant to trust and listen to themselves, and will eventually feel refreshed and self-confident, knowing more about themselves than ever imagined.

Some who question their purpose of existence have found a satisfaction to their itch to discover why, realizing their focus is to live life to the fullest and do anything probable to make themselves known to not only the individuals around them, but themselves as well. They will learn to enjoy, rather than react to life. Clients will learn to acquire a voice, a mind, and a drive to be who they are: outstanding, excellent people ready to begin a brand new and brilliant lifestyle.

“Life coaches assist you to become the World’s Leading Expert on you!” (The Coach Connection).

Finding oneself is arguably the greatest challenge one could face over the course of life. To find themselves, people usually search outside, hoping someone or something will magically give them some answers. Of the many things coaching can do, one of the most powerful is to remind people that they already have the answers within themselves. Coaches empower people to remember those answers and not only find themselves, but see their place, and find their peace, in the world. With empowerment comes confidence, a perceptibly valuable shift within oneself and the ability to define and create an extraordinary life — precisely and appreciably from the core.