Coaching deals with functional persons who want to move toward a more fulfilling and effective life. Coaching is a process similar to solution-focused methods that therapist use for less serious psycho-emotional problems and life stresses. Coaching is different from any mental health services. The coach must tell his client that he has no specific kind of expertise.

The coach provides a relationship that focuses on the following characteristics:

• Exploring and perceiving the specific needs of the client;
  
  
• Exploration of the goals that would facilitate the client in reaching his full potential and his goals;
  
  
• Collaboration with the client, letting the client take the lead rather than the coach imposing his philosophy and values;
  
  
• Create and support an atmosphere of encouragement in which there is no failures. Each step the client takes helps him to know more about himself and to take initiative to move in a more effective direction;
  
  
• Explore ways to help the client truly know his “Self” better and to find more meaning;
  
  
• Use methods that are relevant to the client’s personal, vocational, social, emotional, financial and possibly spiritual goals.

If practiced properly and seriously yes, this is why;

• Some of us don’t know where we are going, what our life is all about and how our values affect us each day. Coaching helps clarify our purpose, values and goals.
  
  
• Some of us may know where we are going and what we need to do. We forget or simply get stuck in our limiting belief systems, ineffective habits or/and inability to focus. A coach will get us back on track by helping to identify those limiting beliefs and ineffective habits. We then may find more effective ways of living, enjoy life and achieve our goals.
  
  
• We often resist changes because it’s easier and more comfortable to stay the way we are. When we make changes it causes resistance and backlashes within ourselves as well as with other people in our life. A coach helps us move beyond that resistance with greater ease and flow.
  
  
• Sometimes we do not know how to clearly formulate our goals and do not know exactly what steps to take to achieve them. A coach will help in clarifying them and help establish the steps to follow.
  
  
• Some of us are focused on our goals and are on the way of reaching them. Sometimes we get loss in the process of achieving them. A coach will help us through the process by guiding us step by step.

Gilles Latrémouille, Psyt., M.P.N.L.P., Life coach