Become a Better Life Coach Through Self Awareness

A  question  was  asked  in my  coaching  community.  It is a great  learning experience  for self awareness.   As  a coach  if I use self awareness  as a  tool  it can  create a great coaching  environment for my clients  and me.  The question asked:

I was on the phone with a friend and once again I found myself hearing her complain about her abusive job situation.  This has been going on for about 5 years.  She barely stops to take a breath, I once told her that unless there is progress being made, she is talking about the same thing over and over.

It makes me feel when someone does that, abused.

She has a steady job during a time when folks have nothing.  There is a lot to be grateful in any situation and when someone does that constantly, it bothers me personally.

Is that what goes on in Life Coaching, a b----- session?

How do you protect yourself from the negative energy of that?

Here’s my answer: Your question is a good one and I'll give you my thoughts as they occur to me.

• I'd never let  a  situation  like  this happen with a client because we pretty much know that we are a good fit before we start coaching and I always get permission to jump in when I get their story. So I interrupt.  Part of  the  reason  I  jump  in is my having self awareness.  I  listen to the feelings  around the comments  expressed  by my  clients.

• That's not what coaching (with me) is about. The reason I didn't become a therapist was because I could never see myself just sitting and listening to someone's problems. I'm about positive change. (I know all therapy isn't about that but I was young and didn't know it then.) The positive change is teaching the clients about self awareness   too.

• I'd hate doing that. I hate doing that for anyone because it brings me down and makes me feel powerless myself. (This doesn't mean I'm not compassionate to friends, family and clients. It does mean exactly what it says.)

• When I get off I coaching call, I'm high. If that doesn't happen most of the time, this coaching relationship isn't working and I know it.

Does this mean I’m heartless? No. It means clients pay me to help them get un-stuck. How would I be helping them do that if I just let them stay stuck in their problem? Once I understand what they want to change, my job as life coach is to help them stay focused in that direction.

So, bottom line, I don’t have to deal with the negative energy because I don’t experience it.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

On The Phone- How Does Life Coaching Work?

I Don't Have an Office

How does life coaching work over the phone? 100% of the life coaching I do is over the telephone. I live in California and coach people in N.J., Florida, N.Y., Nevada. I even have clients who live in England and Scotland. Since long distance is so inexpensive these days, it's easy. It also means the coach does not have to have an office. She just has to have a phone and a place to sit down - at minimum. She can have (and most do) a good headset and a nice, non-distracting setting in which to sit.

But you might wonder if it is most effective for the client and I will wholeheartedly answer, YES!

I have the ability to read energy. A quote from Gia Combs-Ramirez who says,

Reading energy is our ability to perceive vibrations in our surrounding environment and interpret them correctly. The human body has many mechanisms for doing this, most notably the energy field that surrounds us.

I could have probably quoted some science to prove my point but you can prove it yourself. How do you know someone is angry with you when they smile and say nothing? Or, how do you know when a baby is satisfied when they can't talk?

Start noticing if this is a gift you have developed. I think I developed this gift as a child because I was very afraid of my mother and was always energetically checking in to see how she was feeling so I'd be prepared for her emotional onslaughts. I used to just be hyper-vigilant. Now I live a happy, peaceful life and so I have honed this skill and use it to communicate with my clients and feel what's going on with them.

So that's why I find phone coaching so effective. It allows me to totally tune into my clients with no visual cues to get in my way.

And if I'm not sure, I don't just presume. I ask. So then I am modeling good communication skills which is one of the areas most clients want to improve.

So how does life coaching work over the phone? Very well!

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Life Coaches Can Help You Take an Objective Look at Why You Aren'tMoving Forward

Your Life Coach Can Help You with Procrastination

Life sure does seem to be happening faster and faster. Can a life coach help with any of this?

Maybe it's my age but I hear lots of younger people voice the same observation. For whatever reason, no matter how fast-paced your life seems to be, you may still feel like you are spinning your wheels and getting nothing done and getting nowhere.

Whether you procrastinate and put off the important things you need to do or if you constantly seem to come up against a brick wall at every turn, sometimes it takes someone else to help you look at your life situation with an objective eye and see what some of the underlying issues may be. Sometimes it's self doubt and low self esteem. Sometimes it's just a shortage of needed skills. Maybe it's a combination of both.

Fear and self doubt may blind you to what is really happening. Feelings and emotions may be in the way and you may never grow past these issues and become prosperous and self-respecting. If you are working hard and still feel like you are getting nowhere, a life coach could be the key to helping you see what the issues are that are standing in your way and moving forward past them to a whole new future. Make a serious commitment now and deal with the situation before it is too late and you have missed many incredible opportunities. Go pick up the phone.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching 

Who's a Fake Coach?

Life Coach - Real or Fake?

With the growing trend of life coaching, everyone is calling themselves a coach these days. I'm on twitter , a cool social networking site. It's amazing how many people who are in sales and network marketing call themselves "coach".

Elsewhere in this blog you might have read that my personal prejudice is that a life coach does not have to be certified and does not even need formal training necessarily. I learned more from receiving good coaching than I did at my very expensive training school.

That being said, if you want to hire a life coach and you find someone who calls themselves coach but has nothing to offer, it will become apparent to you when you interview the coach - whether in person or on the phone.

An authentic coach will offer you a sample session or will have an in-depth conversation before either of you could possibly consider whether you are right for the coaching relationship with each other. I used to offer a sample session but since I don't know you and don't know enough about you, I find that if we ask a lot of questions of each other, if we are forthright in our communication and I understand what you want from your coaching, I can then tell you what I can offer. I often tend to tell a potential client what I've worked on with other clients and what I've changed in my life in relationship to their needs.

Many who call me have told me that they talked to lots of coaches and they felt "sold". It takes a high level of confidence in ones self, a lot of trust in the Universe to provide the material goods required by the life coach and a strong sense of intuition to not feel fearful of not being hired. I told you in another post recently that I "fired" a client when I realized I was beginning to totally resist our appointments.

Since I usually look forward to each session with anticipation and joy and leave feeling focused, centered and empowered, I knew something was very wrong. I realized that I had been blinded during our initial interview by my ego in agreeing to work with this lawyer because he is my ex-husband's nephew and I thought it was such a "special compliment" to me seeing what our marriage status is and has been for 25 years. Well, that didn't work out. We ended on a positive note but I fell into a very human trap of satisfying my ego but not seeing that we weren't a good match to start out with.

So, again, hopefully you will know immediately if you have the right person or not to hire as a life coach. But certainly you will figure it out quickly and that's why I advise - keep interviewing until you are sure.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching 

Hire a Life Coach to Help Clarify Career Goals

You Can Do Work You Love

A life coach works with you to examine and clarify your needs, values and beliefs and develop the goals that help you grow. One of the most important things that a life coach can help you do is to clarify your career goals to determine if you are on the right track or you need to make some changes. Once you have accomplished this, the life coach can help you set up a specific plan that will take you right to the finish line.

A life coach can make this process much easier and much faster. A coach will help you take an objective look at where you are compared to where you want to be in your career and help you realize talents and skills that you may not even know that you have or thought could be a help to you in your career. With a coach working with you on your career plan, you will always have someone to support you and motivate you to keep going when you feel like giving up.

You may do this with a career coach or a life coach who understands the needs of someone creating a career plan. If self esteem and lack of belief in yourself is a factor, your coach can help you there too.

Since what a coach excels at doing is very individual, you can discover how to get your needs met in your communications with potential coaches before you might hire them.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Why Do I Need a Professional Life Coach?

Has Life Gotten in Your Way?

If you're one of those people who's somehow always on top of your goals, you probably don't need a professional life coach. However, if you're like most of us, life tends to get in the way of achieving those long term life goals. Work, the kids, chores, TV, family time, gardening, chores all help distract us from our dreams and long term goals. And then there's that really subtle bug-a-boo - the one that makes us think we can't have what we want or accomplish what we want.

How would it be to have someone focused just on you and your goals? You are the star! If you think it would be wonderful, you'd probably do great with a professional life coach. Coaches focus 100% on you achieving your chosen future goals.  A professional life coach will concentrate on you -actually helping you figure out your goals and how to execute what you want to achieve. The result may be that you get what you want and then learn to enjoy having what you wanted in your life.

Each individual professional life coach has their own particular something special to add to the mix. It might be their extraordinary intuition. Or their gentle holding up the mirror of truth for you so you don't go into denial. Or their vast experience in the business world.

Whatever you are looking for in support and wonderful help, a professional life coach could be just the ticket.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching 

If Your Partner Is Your Best Friend, Who Do You Turn to for Relationship Advice?

Relationships are hard work and come with a lot of questions and uncertainties – hence the title. Some people warn women not to make their partner their best friend because then they have no one to talk to if they are having relationship trouble. Now what's wrong with that relationship advice? Seems to make sense on the surface but here are the fallacies:

• If there is relationship trouble between the two of you and you can't sort it out with your partner or at least feel safe talking about what's going on with your partner, you have deeper issues underlying that problem. You have a basic flaw in the communication and trust areas of your relationship.

• One of our (my husband and I) secrets is: Make Your Commitment to the Power of the Relationship I suggest making that kind of commitment so that if there is a problem in the relationship, you will not feel like running out the door away from your partner to get away from the problem. Instead you will remember that the relationship is bigger than the both of you and you will at least both be willing to find a way to work it out.


• The second thing wrong with that relationship advice is that it assumes you can have only one best friend. Friends wear different hats. I might not talk to my single friends about a problem in my relationship, but I will talk it over with a friend who's relationship skills I respect.

Many people don’t have the someone else in their lives and when things are rocky in their relationships, they may feel like they have nowhere to turn.

If you do find yourself looking for some relationship advice, be very careful. It is easy to find relationship advice all over the place. Magazines, books, the internet and other complete strangers will freely give their advice about all sorts of relationship issues. During my first really bad marriage of 15 years, people asked me for advice all the time. Now I know that's just the kind of person I am and has nothing to do with my relationship understanding at the time. I shudder to think what I might have told anyone at that time.

And, unfortunately, not everyone has your best interests in mind. They are trying to sell their magazine or book or some may even be trying to push their organization. Many churches and political organizations may offer free counseling services for people but you must keep in mind that they have very specific ideas and motives and they may be trying to convince you that your relationship should be the way they feel it should be or it is wrong, while this may be very different from what you truly want out of your relationship.

If you decide to hire a life coach or a therapist, don't be intimidated by their expertise. You are hiring them and you have the right to interview them – even on the success of their own relationships. I would think it strange for someone to hire me as a coach to help with their relationships if my own marriage was a shambles.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Will Life Coaches in USA Be Coaching Women in China for SelfFulfillment?

It has never seemed likely that USA life coaches will ever coach Chinese women unless it's related to athletics or achieving a gold medal for their country. But who knows? Things are changing there and we have really inexpensive long distance and even internet phoning.

Since much of coaching is uncovering what makes you happy and fulfilled, a likely question to look at is what makes a Chinese woman happy? Power, money, love, sex?

In fact, self fulfillment ranks the highest for more than 60 percent of the respondents in a recent survey conducted by the Yueji Self, a Chinese-language magazine jointly launched recently by the Chinese-language Women of China magazine and the New York-based magazine publisher Conde Nast Publications..

Self fulfillment is defined by The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language as the fulfillment of oneself, the fulfillment of your capacities or the act of consummating something - a desire or promise, etc.

"The high marks for self fulfillment are inspiring and encouraging," Li Yinhe, a noted sexologist and professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said. "It shows big progress. More and more women want to achieve their life value, which eclipses the importance of the private life for women. "When women start to value self fulfillment, they become more equal to men."

"In China, the traditional mindset is that men live for their careers and women live for love. Although only about 22.5 percent surveyed prioritized love as the big happiness maker, it doesn't mean that Chinese women no longer believe in love," Li said.

"The awareness and recognition of women's empowerment are relatively low in China," Li said. "The country has long been a patriarchal society and still is, offering less opportunities and encouragement to women to compete with men. Despite the progress made in gender equality and women empowerment in recent years, only 20 percent of the National People's Congress (NPC) members are females," Li said.

Life coaches, can you imagine yourself coaching women half way around the world? What an exciting prospect!

YOU University Coaching/life coach training and life coaching

What Is Life Coaching?

Everybody's talking about it.

Wikipedia says: Coaching is a method of directing, instructing and training a person or group of people, with the aim to achieve some goal or develop specific skills. There are many ways to coach, types of coaching and methods to coaching. Direction may include motivational speaking. Training may include seminars, workshops, and supervised practice. Craig Miller, a former counselor turned business coach, says he thinks of therapy as taking a person in the present backwards to learn what has been holding them back and then helping them back to neutral. While he sees life coaching as helping people go from neutral on into their future.

I see life coaching as very individual to each and every coach. It is an alliance - a partnership whereby the life coach acts as guide, support, objective observer, listener between the lines of their client in order to help that client achieve what they want to achieve in their life.

They may want to boost self esteem or build self confidence. They may be looking for a career coach or support while changing jobs or starting a business. They may want to deal with their procrastination problems that keep them from building their business. They may have relationship issues where they want to work on a relationship, leave a relationship, get back into a dating life after a divorce. They may want support as a new parent or help in parenting a teen. They may want support for blended family or step-parenting issues. They may want a kind of adult re-parenting themselves. They may want to lose weight or improve their body image. And the list goes one.

From my perspective everything a person wants to do in their life can be accomplished once they uncover what is blocking them. What is most often blocking them started when they were children and two things happened:

• for some reason their feelings were not heard and honored
• as a result, they formulated mistaken ideas and beliefs about who and what they are and their worthiness

Our solution is to have people attend YOU University which is done with a coach.

Now that you're done, I have one thing left I'd like you to do.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Does Your Life Coach Tell You the Hard Things?

Things you should be hearing...

On a regular basis if you tell friends of yours things like:

• "Are you telling yourself the truth about being happy with your weight?"
• "I don't work for nothing."
• "How many things of the many we brainstormed together have you actually done to expand your business? Make a list of all of them, next to it put how much or how many times you have done and then email me each time you do one."
• "Do you think your son is telling you the whole truth? What do you think is really true?"
• "If you put that much money on your credit card and give him the money, what will be his incentive to pay you back?"
• "You have trained him to treat you with no respect."
• "Do you actually have to spend so much money on the cleaners?"

My hand is raised. If yours is raised because you have recently told people these things or things like them all in the last couple of weeks, you are probably a life coach yourself or might want to thing about it.

Often the job of a life coach is to be willing to tell clients the hard things they pay you to hear because they've been ignoring their own inner voices that tell them the same things. It helps to hear it from another person with who you have set your goals and who will help you hold yourself to them.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching  

Fears - Barriers to Personal Growth

Fears in Control?

Allowing fears to stop you from accomplishing what you want in life might be one of the most significant barriers to personal growth.

• Say you want to stop spending your life working for others, doing a job that is largely uncreative and unsatisfying to your soul. But you know how much money is coming in every month.

• What if you don't know what you do want to do or you know but have never been in your own business and don't know how to start or all your old messages of incompetence arise? Hire a coach.

The right life coach is in their own business so they certainly can teach and support you to do the same.

The life coach will help you deal with your negative self talk.

Many people have various different fears and no matter what they are about, they can be so strong that they are completely debilitating. Many life coaches will help you with tools and techniques to overcome your fear so you can follow a clear path towards your future.

A coach will give you tools and techniques to help you over come your barriers to personal growth, of course, but the most important thing that they can give you is the confidence in yourself to know that whatever your fear is, you can handle it. Sooner or later, as you progress with your coach you will suddenly feel so strongly that you can face that fear and do whatever it is you are so scared of,  you will just jump right in and do it.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

What Does Being a Life Coach Have to Do with Personal Power?

I see the role as life coach very simply today.  Show clients their personal power.

My job is to show my clients how to clear their path and their self view of all that says they are less than - less than deserving of material goods; less than deserving of the relationships they want with friends, family and significant other; less than deserving of anything they want.

Someone must have told us that it's only OK to want a certain amount. So a certain amount is what we get. Additionally, it is hard for us humans to remember that we came here for a purpose. In its broadest sense we came here (here being Planet Earth) to learn some other things in addition to our worthiness, our own personal power. What we learn appears to be our own choice.

For example, a client I'm working with is working on letting go of guilt and responsibility around her adult children. We spoke today about how when we enable other adults, we might keep them from growing into the wonderful humans they are in the process of becoming. When we enable other adults and rescue them from themselves, they never get to see their own inner resources or personal power nor seek the support they may decide they need or even fail and learn and grow from that.

We also spoke about the agreements we appear to make on some spiritual level in which we act in certain ways for our children's growth and they do the same for us. Therefore everyone is in agreement. No one is a victim.

I have no idea how I developed the gift of being able to teach, model, intuit all that I do with clients but it appears to be an ever-developing gift. It sure is fun to be able to see, speak and help those people who want to grow in awareness and expand their lives. I love watching the magic of transformation as it occurs.   I love holding the hand of those I work with and becoming part of their magnificent unfolding.  I love seeing those I help exercise their own personal power for their own growth and benefit. It also keeps me aware of my own.

Now that you're done, I have one thing left I'd like you to do.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Would a Spiritual Life Coach Be What You Are Looking for?

Spiritual Journey - Me?

There are life coaches that can help you with every aspect of your life including your spiritual life.

• Do you find yourself spending your whole life waiting for everything to be settled in your lives before you can be happy?
• Do you think with more money you will be happy? More money or more time or when the kids grow up or when you retire?
• Do you think things just happen and they often "happen" to you?

By putting off your happiness this way, what you are doing is wasting your time in hopes of some future happiness. A spiritual life coach can help you stop putting off your happiness waiting for some big life-changing event to happen and help you learn to live in the present moment – which, by the way, is all you really have. A spiritual life coach can help you see meaning in the happenings in your life today.

True happiness comes when you accept yourself and your life the way that it currently is. A spiritual life coach can help you learn to do this so that you can move forward and learn to live in the moment. (It almost sounds like an oxymoron – " move forward and learn to live in the moment". But no, it is just one of the wonderful paradoxes of life.)

When you begin to accept this as a way of life, you can plan goals for your future to make the changes that you would like to that will bring you more happiness and fulfillment but get every drop of joy available in the present moment. What do you have to be grateful for now, this very moment?

A spiritual life coach can begin to help you organize your life and offer questions that will lead you in the direction that you would truly like your life to head in. Once you accept yourself and figure out what you want to change in your life to make you happy now, you can stop waiting for something that may never happen until you choose for it to. A spiritual life coach may just be the answer for you and your sense of fulfillment and happiness.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Why Do I Need a Life Coach?

Life Coach Can Help You
Find Your Way

Most people find a time in their life where they may feel that they have lost their direction or everything that they thought that they wanted, is turning out to be not at all what they really do want. Is that happening to you? It is difficult in today’s hustle and bustle world to remain passionate about your life, especially when you find that you are so busy working and taking care of responsibilities that you have no time left at the end of the day for yourself and what makes you happy? After awhile you may begin to wonder why you even bother getting up in the morning.

Life coaching can be a powerful way to jump start your passion again and explore what it is in life that excites you. The answers are hiding inside you and a life coach can be your guide to finding those answers. A life coach will provide you with a support system to assist you in finding and effectively achieving what you want. He or she will help you start to hold your awareness of your commitments to yourself even in non-coaching times - the rest of your life.

They can help you create new goals and design the life you really want, help you find ways to clear any obstacles in your way, help you break through any destructive thinking you may be in the middle of and hold you accountable for your actions.

Life coaching works because sometimes we need an objective view of our life and what we want out of it and how to get there. Many times we tend to resist change and a life coach will hold you accountable to step outside of your comfort zone and face the change that you ultimately desire.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

The Old Cinderella Story and Your Self Esteem

Life Coach and Your Self Esteem

The Old Cinderella Story

You know the story. Wealthy, loving, widowed dad meets gold-digging woman. Dad marries women and brings her and her two less than lovely daughters to live in manor. Dad dies and leaves less than loving step-mother in charge of all three daughters. Step-mother is jealous of natural daughter's inner and outer beauty and treats her like a servant. One day the prince plans a ball that he wants all young women in the kingdom to attend and at which he will choose a princess. Step-mother will not provide clothes for the natural daughter and locks her in the house the night of the ball.

Along comes Cinderella's Fairy God Mother and with her Magic Wand, provides Cindy with a beautiful dress, glass slippers and turns a pumpkin into a pumpkin coach. You certainly know the rest.

The Real Scoop

Imagine this story as a metaphor for change and self esteem.  Growing up as she did – criticized, belittled, unloved – Cinderella wore her old raggedy self and felt unworthy of fulfilling her real purpose here on Earth (OK. OK. It is a bit pre-feminism to think her real purpose is to marry the Prince. But play along.)

Along comes her Fairy God Mother, waves her Magic Wand and outfits her in the accouterments of real self esteem - enough to make her beauty recognizable to her real purpose.

That Fairy Godmother just waved her magic wand. You can create magic  with a life coach but you will have to do some work. If you are willing, the results will be the same as Cinderella's. You will be transformed!

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching 

Is "just listening" an acceptable activity for coaches with their clients?

This blog is turning out to also be a bit of a forum for life coaches - not just people who might be interested in hiring a coach. One of my favorite client experiences has been helping a newbie client take off into her coaching practice and responding to questions like these from a reader of this blog:

Thanks so much Maia for your response to my question about coaching clients who can tend to be looking for someone to listen to them rather than in taking action. Yes, I have indeed been asking lot of questions to get my client to be more specific about what he wishes to get from the coaching, but it's proving hard to pin him down (especially as it's coaching via email). As you say, it's important to confirm exactly what someone wants to achieve from the coaching so that I'm clear on what they expect from me - and to ensure we are a good fit.

Tamsin Butters, nudgeme (http://nudgeme.co.uk)

Part of the role I play with many clients is partly listening but I always find out early on what I'm listening for. What I mean by that is: if I know where a client is headed, then I can hear if their account of what's happening with them sounds like its heading in the direction they want to go. I am good at listening between the lines so no problem. But I don't think I'd want to work with a client who was email only. I definitely exchange email with clients in between sessions but email is a funny and tricky thing and easily misinterpreted.

Anyway, what are your thoughts?

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching 

Six Ways a Life Coach Can Help You Boost Your Self Esteem

The Life Coach Boost

Get started boosting your self esteem by hiring a life coach. Since a life coach usually helps people with any and all areas of life from career to finances to overeating, all of the work that you do with a life coach will eventually lead back to your self esteem and help to slowly (or quickly) increase it.

A life coach can:

• Help you focus on the positive


• Show you that you are deserving of all good


• Challenge you to reach for what you are worthy of


• Challenge you to reach for what you want


• Point out the positive attributes that you take for granted about yourself


• Gently (or not so gently) tell you the truth about where you are kidding yourself

As you work with the coach and overcome challenges that you face and reach the goals you set out, your regular experience of the focus just being on you with your life coach, will continue to help you raise your self esteem. The life coach will be someone other than yourself that will help make sure that you are held accountable until eventually as your self esteem and self confidence increases, you can learn to hold yourself accountable for your actions and learn to change the negative, critical voices in your head.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching 

Does Everyone Have 'Mother's Intuition'?

Life Coach and Intuition

We all know what it means when someone says they had a hunch or they followed their instinct. This means they were guided by their intuition. You probably have heard of a mother's intuition. Somehow moms just seem to know what to do when something is wrong. Some call it a feeling. Sometimes it appears as a pit of fear in your stomach. Everyone has had those feelings. The difference is how you handle those intuitions and what you do with them. Some people are not confident enough to follow their instincts. Some people will go against all odds on intuition and be right every time.

Intuition is extremely important when choosing a life coach. A life coach needs to be able to count on his or her intuition sometimes to guide the way to help you. A life coach needs to be able to listen to you and pick up on feelings and emotions that are blocking you and sometimes the only clear way they can get to that point is by going on their instincts and feelings. As you work with your coach one of the things that should come to you is the confidence to trust your own intuition.

A while back I decided to send a duplicate of a book I already have to one of my clients. I could not have said why. The book is called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. Amazing! My client is starting her own business after having worked for someone else for her whole adult life. She is flirting with learning how to use the internet to promote her business by starting a blog. As you can see from this blog, blogs work best if you enter posts daily. The other day she was asked by someone at work to do some creative type work on the internet and she heard a little tiny voice tell her, "You're not creative. You can't do this." That's the voice I've been coaching her to listen for and begin to change those self-defeating thoughts. Now back to the Artist's Way. The Artist's Way is a book to help you open your creativity!

Was it coincidence or intuition? What do you think?

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Who Do You Choose - a Man or a Woman?

Male or Female Life Coach?

So, you've already made the decision to get a life coach. Now you must choose one. In addition to all the important questions like their experience and how well you can communicate with them, you must also think about whether you would like a female or male coach. This very well could best be determined by figuring out exactly what you want to accomplish with your life coach.

If you have your own company that you are trying to grow or would like to get in line for the big promotion at work it may be better to go with a male life coach. A male life coach might tend to be more logical and less focused on the emotional aspects. (OK. I know this sounds old fashioned and non-feminist but I believe there are tendencies in males and females - and certainly exceptions. Viva la difference!)

Females tend to be more nurturing and emotional and therefore may be better suited to help in a situation where you are trying to improve your relationships or yourself. Of course, remember that this is not always the case and sometimes men relate better to women or the other way around. The best thing to do is interview a couple of each and determine who you connect the best with and who you feel most comfortable with.

I myself have never had a male coach. I don't have a big problem working on my goals or being logical but I sometimes want the support of someone with both high intuition and high emotional intelligence. Certainly that could be either a man or woman. It just hasn't happened for me to have a male life coach - yet.

YOU University Coaching/Life Coach Training and Life Coaching

Boundaries - Building Healthy Relationships

Boundaries. You hear people talking about them but maybe you aren't sure what they mean. A boundary around a piece of property is the outer limit or can be a wall or fence that is there to keep others out. For you, personal boundaries are your limits for other people in relationship to you. It is the key to building healthy relationships.

Boundaries are an important part of life for everyone. If you do not set boundaries in your personal life, you may find yourself unhappy and resentful. Learn to say no when your boundaries are being pushed too far. For example, your friend often wants you to pick up her kids from school and do a little shopping for her but today you had planned to do your own shopping in a different part of town. It is within your rights to say no. Don't allow anyone to take advantage of you. That doesn't mean you'd never do a favor for your friend. It doesn't mean your boundaries can't be flexible. But unless her need is based on serious circumstances of incapacity of some sort, allow yourself to feel uncomfortable with no , but say it anyway.

Don't let yourself be one of those who time and time again are taken advantage of by the people in their lives. It is unhealthy. You must love yourself and realize that you can't do everything and although you may not like saying no to someone, you have to find a way to get comfortable with saying it. Or maybe you'll never be totally comfortable but you will train those people in your life to think more carefully before they ask you to take on their responsibilities. Boundaries are an integral way to building healthy relationships.

Some people will try to take advantage of you and push your boundaries to the breaking point anytime you allow them too. Don't allow them to. Take care of yourself first and the way to do that is to decide what is acceptable to you and be courageous enough to say no when it is in your best interests. You have to do what is right for you, not your mother, not your husband, not your sister or your neighbor, but you. Only then will you truly be able to continue to help others with love and even enjoyment and without hurting yourself. If this is a tremendously problematic area for you, you might ask a life coach for help.

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