How often have you made a list of things you want to accomplish or changes you want to make in your life and watched those aspirations get booted to the back burner faster than a New Year’s resolution? 

Nearly everyone is guilty of putting their dreams aside at one point or another because their plate is simply too full with everyday responsibilities. It’s not until you finally look back and wonder how you spent another year paying for a gym membership you never use or watching that piano you were going to learn to play collect dust that you realize your ambitions never seem to coincide with your priorities.
 
Well, for those of you who need a solid kick in the rear to get the ball rolling then that’s where a personal coach comes in handy. You heard us right; coaches aren’t just for teams anymore. According to longtime empowerment coach Sally Busby coaching is actually the fasted growing profession in the United States.

Busby breaks down the benefits of coaching to a tool that people can use to reach their full potential, explaining that a coach “works with a client through the process of deep listening and empowering questions to allow the client to access his or her inner wisdom”.
 
Sounds a bit like therapy doesn’t it? From the description you just know there must be a fatigued leather coach involved where patients spill out the details of their lives and hope expectantly for an instant fix. However, Busby reveals that this is not the case; in fact coaching differs from therapy in that “a therapist works with a client to get them from dysfunctional to functional while a coach works with a client to get them from functional to optimal – to realize full potential in life”.

If that didn’t convince you enough that coaching is a far cry from therapy Busby conducts her sessions over the phone – not from a couch. Busby argues that conducting sessions over the phone “allows for greater attention” and her clients are better able to connect due to a lack of distractions which arise from body language, physical appearance and even the environment.
 
Coaching is all about the conversation between coach and client and the ideas that it inspires because as Busby explains we are often the ones standing in the way of achieving our own goals. Yet without an outsider’s perspective it is often difficult to recognize the ways in which we sabotage our very own dreams.

Sometimes we even pursue our goals vigorously but through the wrong means, such as striving endlessly for a promotion but with no result. Busby points out that if we continue to utilize the wrong strategies our efforts can be just as useless as simply neglecting our ambitions.
 
“The coach is a support system completely on your side and rooting for you but who is able to help you look at things from another perspective at a block that may be moving you forward – and the block is usually emotional” Busby explains.
 
For those interested in finding a coach Busby encourages people to seek the right fit – she claims that finding the right coach for a particular client is just as important as finding “the right lover, the right therapist, or the right partner”. After all, just like you wouldn’t want to date just anybody (hopefully!) clients should put some effort into selecting their coach as well.

For more information on Sally Busby's Coaching visit www.sallybusby.com