LIFE COACHING ONLINE COURSE
ACS Distance Education is the FIRST DISTANCE LEARNING ORGANISATION to be awarded course recognition status by the Association for Coaching (UK). For more information about the Association for Coaching, visit www.associationforcoaching.com
ACS Student comment:
[The course] provides a thorough introduction to the practices of Life Coaching. It provides very good learning materials and practical assignments at end of each lesson. The comments from my tutor are always very encouraging and positive. The services from school administrative staff are excellent [and] the course is recognised by Association of Coaching, UK. Mai Ming Au, Singapore - Life Coaching MA MSc MBA course.
Like all inner journeys, life coaching must begin with the client’s present situation and the many internal and external influences upon it. Life coaching begins with working with the client to understand where the person is at, psychologically, physically, financially and interpersonally. Only after obtaining a more accurate, clear picture of the client’s Present can both client and life coach identify elements in the client’s Past that may be hindering growth in any particular area, and plan strategies for the client’s Future that will encourage and nurture progress.
People may contact a life coach for very different reasons: to help them make better financial or career decisions; to get them motivated; to help them overcome feelings of frustration, helplessness, or lack of confidence; to help them manage personal relationships; to help them develop practical life skills. However, the reasons for contacting a life coach may not be the primary issues that are causing the client distress or dissatisfaction, and much of the life coach’s work will be to lead the client on a journey of self-discovery.
Association for Coaching (UK) - ACS has become an organisational member (OMAC) of the UK Association for Counselling. For more information visit www.associationforcoaching.com
Lesson Structure
There are 10 lessons in this course:
-
Introduction: Nature & scope of life coaching
-
Individual perceptions
-
A well-balanced life
-
Coaching processes
-
Coaching skills
-
Coaching & physical well-being
-
Coaching & psychological well-being
-
Coaching success
-
Goal-setting
-
Review & adjustment
Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.
What You Will Do
-
Interview a life-coach (or someone who offers life-coaching service as part of their professional counselling repertoire) for information on the nature of life-coaching.
-
Identify principles that differentiate life coaching from other helping professions.
-
Consider pros and cons of different approaches to life coaching.
-
Do case studies to reflect on and/or observe the effects of different life-coaching
-
approaches on improving a person’s quality of life.
-
Design and administer a questionnaire to research some effects of negative aspects of self-perception.
-
Discuss the importance of balancing a client’s limitations and encouraging the
-
to step outside their comfort zones
-
Identify means of monitoring an individual’s self-perceptions.
-
Examine the relationship and interaction between a person's mental/psychological and physical health and wellbeing.
-
Consider how to deal with clients with special needs such as disabilities.
-
Identify the processes involved in life coaching and describe what each can contribute to a client's personal growth and development.
-
Discuss ways individuals might resist life changes and ways to facilitate change.
-
Discuss the pros and cons of assertiveness training.
-
Identify reasons that individuals are unable to make decisions.
-
Identify different life coaching skills and when they are required.
-
Explain the importance of listening to the client and how to do it.
-
Consider factors that might make a life coach’s personal skill repertoire ineffectual.
-
Discuss the role and risks of physical life coaching in the life-coaching process.
-
Research factors that must be considered when setting out a life coaching plan to promote physical health, and psychological health.
-
Identify crucial information to be included in the development of a client’s plan.
-
Discuss ways to nurture a client's goal setting, planning and self-monitoring skills .
-
Research how much life-coaches use/do not use individualised client plans.
-
How can the life-coach monitor the effectiveness of his/her program for a client?
-
Create and evaluate an action plan for a real person/client, including monitoring.
Some Sample Course Notes
PERCEPTUAL CHANGE
One of the life coach’s most demanding and most rewarding tasks is to draw out the faulty or limiting perceptions that underlie a problem. Using the above example, the life coach might help the woman recognise a deep and unresolved need for acceptance, a childhood guilt grown out of proportion, or even a limiting belief about women’s roles that drives her to sacrifice her personal wellbeing in community service. Perhaps this client has developed a pattern of assuming excessive responsibility, or perhaps she feels that as a woman, she should be more nurturing and selfless. Perhaps she was bought up with a very intense work ethic. Part of the life coach’s work would be to help clients like this recognise their limiting perceptions and adopt a more realistic perspective.
The key to perceptual change is awareness, primarily awareness of the relationship between our perceptions and the quality of our lives. For the life coach, the first step might be to lead the client to recognise the negative effects of their perceptions, after which the client might be more motivated to do the self-reflection that will increase awareness of the thinking that has resulted in those effects. Gradually, the life coach might need to help the client become more conscious of the thoughts and feelings that move through one’s mind, of the ‘self-talk’ or internal dialogue with which the client moulds his perception of any situation. Sometimes, this is all that is needed for a client to choose the change their perceptions and the behaviours that result from them.
Changing our perceptions can have a powerful effect on our experience of the world, as well as our behaviour in it. Changed perceptions can help our fictitious client understand that community work does not require self-sacrifice, and that she is not personally responsible for social ills or wellbeing. She will then be able to make more beneficial and balanced choices, such as reducing her work hours and improving her social life and physical well being.
Why Study with Us
- International Recognition
- Highly qualified tutors
- Ethical and Green
- More choice and Flexibility
- Unlimited one on one access to tutors
- More focus on learning, less on Assessment
- Outstanding track record - graduates actually succeed!
NEW JOB/NEW CAREER/OWN BUSINESS
Have you ever thought of training to be a life coach or business coach but not been sure?
Well here are some very good reasons why you should consider a coaching course.
1. For your own personal development.
2. Improve your confidence
3. Improve how you communicate with others – friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances.
4. Control how you work – start your own coaching business – life coaching or business coaching.
5. Improve your job prospects by implementing coaching techniques into your own ob.
6. Make a difference to the organisation you work for by using your coaching techniques.
7. Have a useful qualification to gain that new job or promotion.
