I’m going to tell you about a great lesson I had in life balance coaching that I wasn’t expecting this week that shocked me and woke me up to the reality that my depressed client was so focused on helping others she has no goals she could think of to work on and no real passion for anything when it comes to her own advancement or happiness. This lady retired from a hi-tech writing position 10 years ago at age 50, and she’s now a very unhappy 60 year old woman in Silicon Valley who spends 100% of her time supporting her retired husband, her son who’s writing his thesis in a small southern California college and daughter who calls every night from Philadelphia with her own problems at work, and her ailing parents who her other siblings just leave it up to little Miss Caretaker to do all the caring for their aging parents.

I was shocked by her nasty attitude towards me because I was coaching her to think of her own goals, dreams, and future and what she wanted to accomplish in the next six months, but she kept refusing my help. I had her reeling and rocking, dealing with and feeling her loss from not pursuing her own interests for it seems most of her life. She was close to tears because I asked the right set of questions to cause her to start grappling with the reason for her unhappiness, and that is she gives and never receives in the way she expects to be paid back.

Life balance coaching ensures you follow your heart

It’s sad to see a person in so much intense pain because they’ve forgotten how to feel and think about their own needs. You can see that they have full heartedly submitted themselves to everyone else around them because they want love and connection. If nothing is done about it, they can become forever trapped in the mindset of helping others and never realize where their own happiness actually comes from.

As a life balance coach, I’m very aware that contribution to others is a wonderful thing, but you can loose site of your own passions for living which can throw you off balance in life. This 60-year-old woman should care for her family and attend to their needs, but how can she do this while she also achieves a level of balance and success in her own life?

Coaching advice: I don’t care what you think

To gain a level of personal balance in life, you need to schedule time weekly to take care of yourself. While coaching Little Miss Caretaker it became clear to me that her family would prefer she focus on her own needs at times to give them a break. They don’t always want to be taken care of.

My life balance coaching advice for my clients is to not care about what others think, but live your life as if you’re a complete person. Don’t always put yourself on the back burner and allow everyone to dump their responsibilities and problems on you like this woman’s family has done so they can pursue their own goals while you continue to defer your own interests.

Don’t be just a people pleaser. Make sure everyone is doing their own part, and that they’re not dumping on you because they’re self absorbed. Life balance coaching looks at relationships as a team of players. If one person in the relationship is out of balance, it is often true that others in the team may be off balance as well.

Give this strategy a try and see for yourself that it works. If you liked this coaching tip, leave a comment or use the handy bookmark buttons below to share it with others on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc. Thanks!

Donald Hunter
Certified JTS Accountability And Strategy Coach

Technorati Tags: Life Balance Coaching, Life Coaching

Through life balance coaching, you help your clients meet the demands of work, family, and themselves. By understanding the four basic human needs and establishing strategies to increasing your clients’ fulfillment of each need, they will not only be happier, but their new positive behavior will be self-reinforcing.

Each of Us Is “Hardwired” with Four Fundamental Needs

Life balance coaching requires the understanding of our needs for Significance, Love and Connection, Certainty and Variety, which are fundamental to all humans. We are all driven to satisfy each of these needs, and the higher our level of satisfaction for each the happier we are. However, as we are caught up in living life, day to day, it is easy to focus on the urgent and underestimate the importance satisfying all of the needs.

Fundamental Needs Often Seem at Odds

Making things more difficult is the fact that these fundamental needs may seem at odds. For example, the need for Certainty seems to work against the need for Variety. In addition, we can meet these needs with destructive behavior. For example, shoplifting can add Variety to your life.

The Heart of Life Balance Coaching

The value of the life balance coach lies in their objectivity and their ability to formulate strategies that better meet all four of the needs in constructive ways. Life balance coaching begins with establishing the current level of satisfaction with each need and the strategies the client is currently using to meet them. Then the coach helps to formulate strategies that increase the level of satisfying all needs, while not decreasing any. For example, the client may have a high level of Significance from their leadership role at work but reduces the sense of Love and Connection at home by carrying over that style when they come home, the coach can formulate and anchor new behaviors for the client at home. Thus the coach helps the client meet both needs at a higher level. This new pattern of behavior is self-reinforcing since the client is not required to trade satisfying one need against another. And the client is happier leading a more balanced life.

Hope you took some great value out of this post today! I’d love to hear your feedback, so make sure you leave a comment with your thoughts or questions. And also, you can click on the Twitter button below to retweet this article… Thank you!

Dave Iuppa
JTS Advisors Strategy and Accountability Coach

Technorati Tags: Life Balance Coaching, Life Coaching

Do you have life balance coaching clients who are out of control? They flip flop between working on fulfilling their dreams in one part of their life, only to lose sight of other areas? One of the most common patterns of this craziness is the battle between work and family life or leisure. It is the balance between getting their needs met for significance on one hand and love on the other.

The Life Balance Myth

That there is some type of balance point in your clients’ lives is a fallacy. While you can balance scales, dishes, and other physical objects; you can’t really balance someone’s life any better than a parent can be completely fair by giving each child exactly the same things. My dad had a terrible time trying to make everything fair between my sister and me. Except for the rare moments when we both wanted the Barbie camper or to go to Disneyland, we really wanted different things. Even at Disneyland we wanted to ride different rides. How do you define fair and even when the things in your clients lives all demand different types and amounts of resources?

Life Balance Coaching Is Not For Dummies

To really help your clients attain balance in their lives, you need to assess which of their four basic needs are getting met for each part of their lives. Is your client’s primary drive to feel significant? Meaning that he/she wants to feel important, unique or valuable? Or is it to get love and connection? Perhaps the primary drive is to have certainty about finances. Sometimes people are more concerned about getting some variety in their life; whether it’s from quilting with friends or bungee jumping.

When life balance coaching gets interesting is when two major needs are conflicting with each other. For example, there is often a battle between the need to feel significant in business and the need to get love and connection from the family. One way of resolving this power struggle over the needs is to help your clients focus on their contribution, rather than allowing them to fall into the trap of getting something for them. In doing so, not only can they find more balance in their lives; but you set up your clients to become the hero in their own life.

To learn more about how to generate an endless wave of high paying coaching clients, get your FREE Instant Access to our “Life Coaching Business Blueprint” video toolkit when you go HERE.

Colette Seymann
JTS Advisors Designated Accountability Coach

Technorati Tags: Life Balance Coaching, Life Coaching

Most of your clients will benefit from life balance coaching.  They may not think of what they want in quite those words, but if they aren’t satisfied with their lives, or their level of success in their work or business, or their relationships, often times the cause is a lack of balance on the teeter-totter of their daily lives.

The costs of an out-of-balance life

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An out-of-balance life can show up in your clients as almost anything.  A successful business woman comes to you because her marriage is on the rocks.  You identify her problem as one of not spending enough quality time with her spouse–a time imbalance.  Or perhaps she doesn’t allow herself the opportunity to be feminine in her marital relationship–a role imbalance.  A father calls you looking for help with his out of control children and you find he never has time for them because he’s always at work running a successful company.  This is a life focus imbalance–work vs. family.  All of these situations and many more call for life balance coaching.

The steps of life balance coaching

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There are two over-arching steps in life balance coaching.

1) Diagnose the imbalance.   Find out what the problem is.  It may not be what your client thinks.  For instance, the business woman with the rocky marriage may think she and her spouse just aren’t communicating anymore.  Well, that may be true, but why?  Is it because she is stressed out and busy?  Or is it maybe because she hasn’t learned to leave her more masculine, dominant, leadership role at the office and exchange it for her feminine womanly role at home with her husband?   Life balance coaching first addresses the what and the why of the problem.

2) Get leverage for change.   Coach your client to find the leverage, the motivation to change what might be entrenched, well-anchored behaviors.  Get your business woman to look at the cost of not changing.  What will be the pain to her of divorce?  What will it mean to her family life, to her ability to grow and contribute, to her finances.   Get that dad to imagine his son in jail for a DUI or drug charge, or even dead because he’s hanging out with the wrong crowd.  Whatever his worst possible vision of the future is if he doesn’t change, that’s what you want him to see.  Then get him attached to the good outcomes that will result if he takes your life balance coaching and redistributes his time and energy.

How well is your own life balanced?  Would you benefit from life balance coaching?  If so, walk your talk, and bring it up with your own coach!

Give this strategy a try and see for yourself that it works. If you liked this coaching tip, leave a comment or use the handy bookmark buttons below to share it with others on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc. Thanks!

Dorine G Kramer
JTS Advisors Strategy and Accountability Coach

Technorati Tags: Life Balance Coaching, Life Coaching

Parkinson’s Law was named after Cyril Northcote Parkinson, who was not involved in life coaching at all.  He was worked in the British Civil Service and in 1955 published an essay which began by stating, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion” (according to Wikipedia).  Just goes to show you that there are some people who work for the government who may actually be interested in life coaching to get themselves out of the ‘rat race’ we hear so much about.  While the current form of this law is now about the mathematical rate at which bureaucracies expand over time, it’s still a great life balance coaching concept.  Especially since it means that as the years go by, we become even more ineffective if we don’t do something to change.  This seems like a powerful reason to look at life balance coaching now.

Using Parkinson’s Law Can Help You Find Balance in Your Life Coaching Business

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How can we apply Parkinson’s Law in our own life and our life coaching businesses?  Many times we use the life coaching time management tool of creating blocks of time to get certain things done.  How often do you find yourself with extra time after that block?  More commonly we find we didn’t have quite enough time to complete a project in that block and have to find more time by stealing it from somewhere else.  Usually it cuts into our “free” time, which is why life balance coaching has become popular.  In fact, one of the greatest frustrations people express when enrolling in life balance coaching is not having enough time for it all.

For Life Balance Coaching You Must Refine Your Tools to be More Effective

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While I’m not suggesting that we throw the baby out with the bath and eliminate creating blocks of time in life balance coaching, this tool needs some refinement.  Perhaps we could be more productive by creating sub-blocks of time.  One block might be to create an outline of the task; giving it an appropriate length of time with a five minute buffer to have a cup of tea or other life coaching celebratory reward such a giving yourself 10 pats on the back.

Another way to chunk time is to re-think the concept of the block of time.  One of my life balance coaching colleagues suggests committing to completion of certain tasks within a block, instead of committing to work for a certain amount of time.  This creates focus, intensity and power instead a plow horse mentality of just getting through it.  Remember that these blocks of time are not like sitting in detention after school, they are designed to get you closer to your life coaching goals.

Colette Seymann

JTS Advisors Bi-Designated Strategy and Accoutntability Coach

Technorati Tags: Life Balance Coaching, Life Coaching

Life coaching, like any business, is tough.  You need good life balance coaching skills just to manage your own resources to really be successful.  Thankfully there are only three variables you absolutely must manage to enjoy longevity and success as a life coach.  These life balance coaching essentials are time, energy and money.

Life Balance Coaching Essential #1: Time Management

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Time is probably the most common life balance coaching challenge.  If you can manage it with yourself, you have a better chance of managing it with your life coaching clients.  Time is precious, and once you spend it there is no way to retrieve it.  Choose to spend your time doing the things that are most important, not necessarily the most urgent.  Emails, phone, sometimes even meetings will keep you from doing what you need to do to move forward.  So next time you catch yourself doing something that you are comfortable doing, stop and ask yourself, “Is this what I really need to be doing to take the next step?”   I’ve caught myself writing a blog article instead of a proposal for a speaking engagement and tried to justify the choice to myself.

Life Balance Coaching Essential #2:  Energy Management

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Sure you need a lot of energy to effectively coach your life coaching clients, but true life balance is more about the inner game.  It’s a mindset such as, “I have nothing to lose.”  My dad used to say, “Drop me anywhere from an airplane with a parachute and I’ll survive.”  He didn’t spend energy worrying about food, shelter or clothing.  He focused his energy on what he wanted to accomplish.  Managing your energy in life balance coaching also means budgeting energy to spend on making relationships successful.

Life Balance Coaching Essential #3: Money Management

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And the last, but certainly not the least, challenging life balance coaching essential is money.   We are a consumerist society.   What would our society be like if we only spent money on things that would gives us a three-fold return on our investment?   But the truth is, most people won’t do this.  A life coaching client was telling me of her financial woes.  She felt like she didn’t have any choices, and her family was on the verge of financial disaster.   They were only saving $300 per month.  Upon further questioning she told me that she and her husband each had $200 per month budgeted to spend however they wanted.  She was surprised when she realized that $400 per month was just slipping through their fingers when the rest of the budget was so tight.  One rule of thumb is to only spend money on things that will give you a three-fold return on your investment.

By managing the life balance coaching essentials, we really open up the possibility of achieving a life worth living.  Once you start managing your own resources, you’ll be better prepared to help your life coaching clients manage theirs.

Colette Seymann

JTS Advisors Bi-Designated Strategy and Accountability Coach

Technorati Tags: Life Balance Coaching, Life Coaching

What life balance coaching do your life coaching clients need to get results?  In your life coaching business you focus on the basics.  One of the most basic rules of life is we cannot be in two places at one time.  Most people live their life always reacting to distractions that come up.  Between the cell phone, TV, computer, long hours at work and family how do you get everything done?  It all starts with where you spend your time.  You cannot give effective life balance coaching without teaching your clients where to spend their time.

Life Balance Coaching:  Teach Your Life Coaching Clients That Time Has More Value Than Money

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Teach your life coaching clients that time has a future value.  Jim Rohn was a success expert.  My favorite Jim Rohn quote is “Time is more valuable than money.  You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.”  In your life balance coaching it is important to teach your clients how to spend time wisely.   Time is like money.  You get a return on your time depending on where you invest it.   How do you help your clients spend their time on the right activities to improve their life balance?

Life Balance Coaching:  What Doesn’t Get Scheduled; Doesn’t Get Done

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Your life coaching clients need to learn that some activities produce better results than other activities.  For example, watching TV will produce different results than exercise will. Life balance coaching is about teaching your clients how to choose activities that create better results in every area of life.  What doesn’t get scheduled; doesn’t get done.  Your client must schedule activities that will cause better results.  You must create a daily or weekly schedule for them to create better results in their life.  If you help schedule their life and they take the right actions, they will be excited with their results.  If they are excited about their results you have been a great coach for them.

Kris Thompson

JTS Advisors Strategy Coach

Technorati Tags: Life Balance Coaching, Life Coaching

The main difference between life coaching and life balance coaching is boundaries. In life coaching, we see the possibilities as limitless, without boundaries. However, in life balance coaching, it is necessary to find places to implement some boundaries. Otherwise, what started out as a nice little ride to success can turn into a train wreck.

Use Life Balance Coaching to Reach Your Clients in New Ways

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What does a life without boundaries look like to a life balance coaching client? They may work all the time, and have no time for their heath, family or any other interests. They may be successful in one area, but may be teetering on the brink of burnout. Many times life coaching ignores the other aspects of a client’s life until the client brings that issue up.

Life Coaching and Life Balance Coaching: In Some Cases One in the Same

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There may be intersection between life balance coaching and life coaching in some cases. I was working with a woman who wanted relationship coaching, but the real issue was that she didn’t have any boundaries. Not with how many hours she worked in the office, how many activities she provided for her children, and not with the responsibilities she took on as a homemaker. A typical life coaching session might have just helped her address the problems and find solutions; hire a housekeeper, work fewer hours, get her husband to start doing more, and take time for herself. But the real issue was about her feeling that she needed to do everything in order to be somewhat acceptable. With that linchpin released, she started allowing herself to have life balance.

Life Coaching Not Enough for Super Achievers

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Life balance coaching can be very valuable to high achievers who are so driven by their need to be significant, they loose out on variety and love in their lives. Taking even one day out of their week may be too challenging to follow through, because they are afraid to be insignificant for even one day. One client told me he had wanted to go windsurfing for a few months, but hadn’t started it yet. He was a “make it happen” kind of guy. He was help back by the ‘need’ to be significant every day through his work, and windsurfing might cause him to loose even more significance if he fell into the water and looked ‘bad’. Your average life coaching skills are not enough for these super achievers.

Don’t be afraid to take your life coaching skills to the next level and break through your current boundaries. Look at your clients as a whole, and offer them life balance coaching so when they achieve their goals, they haven’t lost everything that was valuable to them along the way.

Colette Seymann

JST Advisors Designated Accountability Coach

Technorati Tags: Life Balance Coaching, Life Coaching