Michelle Clark Ph. D
416 Douglas Avenue, Suite 205
Ames, IA 50010
515-296-0125
michelle@michelleclarkphd.com

Life Coaching

Tiger Woods is an exceptionally talented athlete whose skills and efforts have resulted in amazing success. In addition to his innate talent and committed practice, his performance has also been enhanced by using a professional golf coach who can point out new options, provide him with objective feedback, and support him to reach his full potential. This model of “coaching” in athletics can apply to life! Life coaching is aimed at assisting successful, resourceful, and intelligent individuals to live their life to the fullest potential.

Who Can Benefit from Coaching?

Professionals, faculty members, business owners, teachers, ministers, and graduate students are some examples of people who seek out life coaching. People who work with a coach may live a life that looks ideal from the outside, yet wonder if they could have more passion and purpose. They may have accomplished goals they’ve set for their life, yet feel a nagging sense that they haven’t lived up to their full potential. People in the midst of life transitions, or those who are approaching a major life task (e.g. applying for tenure, starting their own business) benefit from coaching. Listed below are some goals you may have that respond well to coaching:

• living a life that you love
• having a balance between work, relationships, and leisure
• identifying the most important facets of life and finding that your time, energy, and actions match with these priorities
• having friendships and intimacy that fuel your life and leave you feeling warmly connected with others
• having a career that enables you to express your strengths
• accepting your own body and treating it with kindness
• having the spiritual life you desire and living in a manner that reflects your highest self
• identifying and reducing those facets of your life that drain your energy and maximizing those facets that expand your energy
• earning and managing money in a manner that matches with your financial goals
• expressing yourself sexually in a way that affirms both your body and your spirit

What Can I Expect From Coaching?

A life coach is a professional, a mentor, a trainer and an advisor who utilizes counseling, psychology, spirituality, and business acumen to assist you to reach your goals. Coaching is an action-oriented, future-focused, and collaborative process in which the client and coach work as partners. Many people utilize coaching because it creates synergy, in other words, two people working as a team create more energy and creativity than one person alone. The coach will provide structure, feedback and support your growth and efforts to create an even better life than you have now. The client generates goals, takes actions, and looks for ways to stretch to become a more fulfilled person.

Here is what the client must have:

• A willingness to learn and take new actions
• The internal and external resources necessary to face new challenges and take risks
• At least one area of life in which s/he would like to grow or make productive changes

• Assist in setting goals and laying out a plan to attain them
• Create a warm, collegial atmosphere in which your strengths and positive intentions are affirmed
• Challenge you to do more than you might have done on your own, and support you while you do it
• Provide honest and direct feedback
• Assist you to be accountable to yourself by tracking your actions and progress
• Help to identify how the successes you’ve already achieved can apply to your current goals

What are Some Specific Areas for Coaching?

• Career
• Relationships
• Finances
• Health and Wellness
• Finding Balance
• Setting Life Priorities
• Managing Transitions
• Spirituality
• Sexuality
• Motivation