Life Coaching

Kim Richardson offers face-to-face or telephone life coaching to:

• Anyone wishing to make changes, achieve results or negotiate transitions in their personal or professional life

• Prospective parents - pregnant women, women considering fertility treatment or adoption. For more info please visit newmothercoach.com.

• New parents - she works with new mothers helping them adjust to life with a new baby. For more info please visit newmothercoach.com.

• Parents with concerns - i.e. any parent who wishes to gain an understanding of and change something that interferes with their parenting effectiveness, and/or a parenting problem that interferes with the parent or child's personal well-being and satisfaction.

Life Coaching with Kim Richardson

• Why do people seek coaching (as opposed to therapy)?

• How is a coach more able to get lasting results, than doing it oneself?

• What are some examples of why people seek coaching?

• Is Life Coaching right for you (complete this Q)?

• ICF's FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT COACHING

• What Kim Richardson's clients say /Testimonials
  

Why do people seek coaching (as opposed to therapy)?

Generally, people seek psychotherapy when they can no longer manage aspects of their lives, or even all of their lives. They wish to alleviate suffering, understand the past and repair emotional wounds. As a therapist, I understand therapy to be absolutely essential at times to restore a person's well-being.

Coaching is designed to add greater value and satisfaction to your life. It is designed to bring great success to your business, relationship, creative life or professional life. It is optimistic; it looks to the future, expects results and depends on you taking action to achieve what you want.

Like all coaches, I assume that my coaching clients are whole, resourceful and creative, but - like all of us - need attention, encouragement and motivation to bring our best selves into being. Very often what is stopping you achieve what you want is you! People get in their own way by knowingly or unknowingly sabotaging themselves. Simply recognizing and understanding when you do this is enormously life changing!

How is working with a coach better able to get lasting results, than going it alone?

Coaches are experts at helping people get results. There are so many ways that hiring a coach to help you achieve your goals is more helpful than doing it alone. As a student in an ICF accredited coach training program, I have participated in 123 teaching class hours, 60 coaching hours, 12 supervised coaching hours and countless written tasks learning how to help you clarify, define and achieve your goals.

I believe the following 5 concepts and skills to have the most impact and as such I use them as the basis for my work with most of my clients:

Coaching is value-based.
As your coach I can help you identify your most deeply held values and articulate your life’s vision. Any changes you make need to be congruent with these things otherwise there will not be enough momentum to make difficult changes. A vision that is clear and real will draw you along towards it. Values that are uniquely articulated and real will propel you forward. As your coach, I am trained to help you discover, clarify and uniquely articulate your top 5-10 values.
With such powerfully meaningful forces pushing and pulling you in one direction, discipline and rules often begin to seem unnecessary and results happen without white-knuckling and internal conflict. Some would say results happen seemingly effortlessly when everything lines up.

Coaching is Realistically Goal Oriented.
Many goals (think New Year’s Resolutions) are abandoned because they are set impulsively, thoughtlessly and in the realm of fantasy and magical thinking. As your coach I will help you set SMART goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-sensitive.  In addition we will explore what it is you (not your parent, partner, boss or children) want for yourself. In setting these goals we will carefully consider what has and hasn’t worked before in your life and what is successful in the literature. Using proven methods to achieve results sounds like an obvious way to go about things, but when it comes to personal goals most of us are not that thoughtful and end up doing the same old thing year after year and still expecting different results. Phew!

Coaches Hold You Accountable.
When you work with a coach, you have someone who is truly invested in your progress. As your coach, I am not in competition with you, or secretly hoping you will fail so that I do not have to deal with your success! I am championing you and noticing when you are being who you need to be to achieve the results you want. I will notice you strenghting newly germinating aspects of yourself that have been ignored and neglected. I will affirm and acknowledge you for this. I will help you to notice and acknowledge these previously invisible parts of you. I will hold you accountable for the actions you said you would take and the homework you promised to do.

I am also hired to be honest and direct with you about what is and isn’t going well on your coaching journey. You can count on me to give you useful feedback that is thoughtful, respectful, sensitive and truthful. Feedback is always aimed to serve your best and highest interests, helps you become unstuck, deepens our connection and moves the coaching process forward.

Coaching offers new perspectives to old problems.
As your coach, I constantly hold the bigger picture. I can help you step out of the overwhelming details and self-recriminations, criticisms and judgements  to take in the meta-view. When you are less overwhelmed and able to calm down and see the vista from a new perspective, results appear far less unobtainable and impossible. When you believe in what you are doing, you are halfway there!

Coaching builds external structures, internal resources and self-esteem.
Providing external “structures” to help you stay on track is something coaches are trained to do. Examples of these might be records, journals, time-keepers, rewards, incentives, affirmations, a wonderful workspace, an exericize buddy  – anything that serves you by keeping you focused on your journey.
As your coach, I am also very attuned to the ways in which you (yes YOU) get in the way of your own progress. I notice your internal saboteur in your choices, speech patterns and in your actions, and even in your relationships. I focus on helping you notice when and how you abdicate power in your life by teaching you about four powerful unconscious patterns present in all of us. Once these become more conscious, and you take charge of them, your self-esteem is strengthened and enhanced. Achieving results and goals is that much easier.

When you feel good about yourself and trust yourself not to compromise yourself, you take yourself and your life more seriously; you like yourself better and you do what you need and want to do with your remaining precious time.

What are some examples of why people seek coaching?

People do not always know exactly what they want from coaching. Many times, people feel a sense of being stuck, or that something is missing from life. That is enough reason to hire a coach.

Others are more specific as to why they want coaching:

You are in a time of transitions: Transitions are stressful no matter how happy or sad they may be. If you are in a transition and wish to negotiate the changes that are happening to you and around you with the least amount of stress, coaching can be invaluable. In fact you may even wish to see the transition as a time for self-development, healing and would like to be able to grow and learn from the transition and know that you cannot do so without a fresh perspective. 
Examples of transitions are: retirement, bereavement, menopause, pregnancy, adoption, immigrations, job change, career change, college, empty nesting, divorce, leaving home, returning vets.

Something unexpected or entirely new suddenly demands all your resources: Examples of these kinds of things are: having a new baby, discovering an infidelity, a chronic diagnosis in yourself or a loved one, a life threatening illness, an accident, any kind of unexpected loss, needing to develop new skills for your job such as public speaking, writing a book.
Your learning curve is huge and the event demands all of your attention. To sweep it under the carpet would be unwise and yet you feel ill-equipped to deal with it alone. There are coaches who specialize in various niches. This means that they have the general coaching skills but they also have specific knowledge in their niche area. This may be due to an interest in this area or a previous profession in this area.

Difficulties with self-care.
Many people call on a coach when multiple attempts at managing their diets, finances, fitness, weight or self-destructive habits fail. As your coach, I will use all the tools in my kit to help identify exactly how you need to take care of yourself. We focus on habits that need to be created as well as those that need to be eliminated. Where addictions and life threatening behaviors are present, I can work in conjunction with other professionials and organizations you may need to be in touch wtih.

Breaking your own glass-ceiling – coaching for success! People often hire a coach to take them to the next level of their success whether it be in their personal, spiritual, family or professional life. As your coach, I am trained to help you define a vision for your life and brainstorm ideas without imposing your habitual limits on things. I am trained to get you to value your life and believe in yourself and your dreams. Defining these dreams, making changes necessary to realize them requires thought and planning and support.

To learn more about coaching, you can read through the FAQs below, compiled by the International Coach Federation (ICF).

To learn more about coaching, you can read through the FAQs below, compiled by the International Coach Federation (ICF).

Is Life Coaching right for you?

Feel free to complete the following Coaching Readiness Questionnaire and/ or email Kim Richardson to schedule a free, no-obligation trial session that will help you decide whether life coaching would benefit you.