Frequently Asked Questions

What is “Coaching”?  The Institute for Life Coach Training defines coaching like this:

“Coaching entails working with people who already have a measure of “success” in their lives, but who want to bridge the gap between where they are and where they want to be in their profession and their personal life. This is much like a trainer who helps an athlete win the “gold medal” – not just be in the race.”  Life coaching is all about helping you identify the things that you want to achieve and then supporting and guiding you in the journey to accomplishing these things. Coaching focuses on bringing out the resources and brilliance that’s already within you, which is why it’s so powerful! A professional coach is skilled in the methods and practice of helping people design their own framework of living – one that challenges them and sets them on a path towards realistic goals. It’s important to understand that a good coach is a teacher, and a key part of the process is understanding the balance between when to challenge you to become stronger in an area of weakness, and when to encourage you to push for a goal. The true value of the coaching experience is learning how to apply coaching principles to yourself, so you become skilled in achieving your goals on your own!

Isn’t Life Coaching just a fad?  Popular culture has a way of pointing out “here today, gone tomorrow” fads, it’s true. It’s also easy to perceive coaching, on the surface, as simply more motivational self-talk mumbo jumbo. However, the truth is that the discipline of life coaching is time-tested, proven approach to helping empower people with the drive and skills they need to live more fulfilling lives. You don’t have to take our word for it, though:

“Once used to bolster troubled staffers, coaching now is part of the standard leadership development training for elite executives and talented up-and-comers at IBM, Motorola, J.P. Morgan, Chase, and Hewlett Packard. These companies are discreetly giving their best prospects what star athletes have long had: a trusted adviser to help reach their goals."

-- CNN.com

Coaching isn’t just a secret weapon for major corporations. People everywhere, from a wide variety of social and economic backgrounds are discovering the invaluable skill that is life coaching. True life coaching doesn’t make too-good-to-be-true claims for instant success, because that’s not how it works. Anyone can be coached, but it takes work, discipline, and a skilled practitioner to help you understand how to apply coaching to your life.

What happens in a coaching session?  Coaching is always a personalized experience, so no two coaching sessions are exactly the same. In our introductory session, we’ll focus on exploring the goals you have, and what brought you to coaching. In later sessions our discussion will focus on practical steps, as well as reflection on recent experiences. We’ll use various tools and exercises along the way and assignments will be an important way for us to measure progress.

How long does it take?  Coaching is client specific and goals are individualized.  Sometimes incredible progress is made in mere minutes, but most it’s common for the coaching relationship to span several sessions over a period of weeks or months.

Is it expensive?   Your initial consultation with us is free. We want to help make coaching possible for you and encourage you to discuss your coaching investment with us. 

What if I need to cancel my appointment?  If you need to cancel your appointment, please contact us at least 24 hours in advance of your session. Sessions canceled with less than 24 hours notice will not be refunded.

Is life coaching confidential?  The life coaching process is confidential, and everything that you share, as well as any of your personal information, is always held in the strictest of confidence. Additionally anything you transmit over our website is highly secure, and stored data is HIPAA-compliant.  We treat all of our client data and discussion as strictly private.