Turning to a life coach or a business coach for help has now become accepted practice to help individuals and businesses achieve their goals
. Increased use of these methods can almost certainly be put down to a softening in society's general attitude to seeking external help. It appears that both individuals and businesses are now much more willing to embrace business and life coaching as it has been proven that both of these methods can produce real results.
So what is involved in these two methods of coaching and how can they help? These types of coaching have only really been around as a distinct profession since the early 90s. Most coaching schools are privately owned businesses and are self regulating since no industry wide coaching regulation body currently exists.
The idea behind life coaching is that it is a method by which individuals can be helped to set and achieve personal goals. In order to achieve this life coaches will not use psychological analysis as such but rather will use methods from the areas of sociology, mentoring and career counselling.
One of the leading lights in the field of life coaching is a man called Ben Karter who was an ex sports coach who turned into a motivational speaker in the late 1970s and many of the techniques he used are still in use today. The main methods a life coach will use are mentoring, goal setting and behaviour modelling.
With regard to business coaching, even though the role of the business coach has changed dramatically over time, research papers show that many organisations were using some form of internal coaching from the 1930s to 1960s. Business coaching must be viewed as being distinct from mentoring. To be a good business coach you must have the skills of a good mentor but also you must have specific business expertise and experience which is relevant to the person you are coaching.
Business coaches and life coaches have many methods in common. They both help to achieve success in life or in business by helping people to set and attain goals. They also both encourage the correct mindset in an individual to achieve success.