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

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

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