• You'll take time out to look in at your life
• Together we will learn exactly why your life is not working the way you want it to
• Together we'll clarify what you actually do want from your life
• You will design inspiring, believable goals for your new life - to give you new direction
• We will find & remove your hidden beliefs - those that drive your
  self-limiting behaviours
• Our sessions will help you stay focused, positive & on track - fighting any distractions
• You are always in control of the coaching process - your in charge, I'm here to help
  

* I charge the full fee for appointments cancelled with less than 24 hours notice

Obesity & Diabetes Practitioner - Level 4 REP's | Clinical Nutritionist S.A.C.Dip

Life coaching aims to help you achieve clarity & confidence to work through issues that hold you back from enjoying a challenging & fulfilling life. Life coaching is not about making simple judgments about someone's life, then telling that person how they ought to live it.

Both personal experience & social science research have shown that people are the sum of their genes, their life experiences & the circumstances in which they live their lives. I believe that successful coaching has to be based on an understanding of all these factors & not just focus on superficial behaviours. Effective, true & authentic coaching is based on the following five principles:

• a shared feeling of trust & empathy between client & coach
• a relationship of equality between client & coach
• a desire on the client's part to focus on the future, while acknowledging the effects of the past
• a willingness by the client to work through challenging issues towards;
• empowerment, self-confidence & a happier, more productive life
• a belief in their ability to accept themselves & yet make changes that will improve their lives

Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer to that question!
In the UK today, there are thousands of practitioners who call themselves ‘Life Coaches’. But there is no single professional standards body monitoring entry or practice in the field - with respect to training institutions or actual coaches. Some training organisations & coaches say they are members of various governing body's, but the truth is that anyone can call themselves a Life Coach & anyone can claim they are qualified to train others to become Life Coaches.
This means you are pretty much on your own when searching for a coach. But you should research all the available resources; the web, the press & trusted friends, but you will still have to rely on your own judgment when choosing a Life Coach.
You do need to feel confident of opening up to a particular coach. Try to stay away from coaches who make promises that sound too-good-to-be-true, because they probably are! Avoid coaches who demand a lot of money up-front, as you need a little time to find out if you like working with someone.

The lack of a reputable accreditation body makes it very difficult to judge the qualifications & expertise of any given coach - I believe that you should trust your instincts!

Most coaches advertise on the web & offer some details about their background & experience. Some include photo's of themselves. You should absorb all the information available to you & then listen to your heart & your head, about whether you think this person appears credible & empathetic. You need to choose a Life Coach who you think will really work to understand you, who won’t judge you & who won’t offer patronising quick fixes!

Coaches also work with clients in different ways, a vast majority work with their clients over the phone or by email. I like to work with my clients face-to-face, as I find personal interaction invaluable when building & maintaining a safe, trusting & productive environment. Most of my clients find me via the web. The combination of my website & our brief conversation usually gives my clients confidence they have found someone qualified who they can trust.

That's entirely up to you & the choice of coach you make!
A good Life Coach will offer their clients a safe, yet challenging, environment in which they can explore their feelings & work out what's bothering them with the help of objective & yet non-judgmental, input. I see my role as a Life Coach to:

• try to really understand both you & the issues you are struggling with
• help you regain & maintain self-confidence, self-acceptance & self-belief
• encourage you to acknowledge your core strengths
• examine your goals, interests & choices
• explore real & perceived stumbling blocks to progress
• help you achieve a sense of purpose
• help you live a fulfilled & authentic life

My own personal life experience & work experience, along with my qualification as an Advanced Life Coach, have given me a fantastic background & wealth of knowledge about human nature & behaviour's, from which I can draw from as a Life Coach.

Therapy & my approach to Life Coaching share very important core principles, e.g., a person-centred, empathetic approach & unconditional positive regard for the client. I believe there are three key differences between the way I coach & therapy;

Orientation - in therapy the focus is on helping clients deal with the past; I focus on the future & assume you are ready to attempt to pursue a fulfilled, authentic life.

Goals - therapy aims to ‘fix’ problems, or at least make them less debilitating; I aim to help you create new opportunities & get more out of life.

Relationships -the therapist:client relationship is often based on an expert:patient model; with Life Coaching, you & I are more like partners.

People deserve to feel as happy, confident & fulfilled as possible.
As a Life Coach, i work with clients privately to help them sort through difficult issues & move forward in positive ways. It is through dialogue, listening, probing & thoughtful analysis that together we make significant progress towards clarity & a strategy for change. Some of my clients are looking for help making decisions & tackling specific problems, whereas others are seeking more general support. I work with clients from all walks of life who are facing a variety of issues & tackling a range of problems. Despite their differences & particular concerns, my clients share some important similarities. They are not satisfied with the status-quo, they want to feel differently about their lives & their futures, yet they are willing to examine what really matters to them - even if it's hard to do so! Listed are examples of issues presented;

• Personal Development/Relationships - Seeking clarity & resolution, have relationship concerns
• Decision-making/Interpersonal Communication - tackling anxieties, confidence issues
• Work-life Balance/Career Change - valuating life/career options, facing difficult career choices
• Stress Management/Time Management - strategies for coping with stress, managing time
• Self-awareness & Self-acceptance - seeking to gain deeper self-understanding & acceptance

As your personal Life Coach, I will listen to you, value you & help you sort through whatever issues are troubling you.....

One of my specialised areas is Clinical Nutrition & i'm also a fully qualified Obesity & Diabetes Practitioner. My expertise includes weight-loss, weight-management & eating disorders. I have dealt with many clients struggling with issues such as Bulimia, Anorexia & Obesity. I have found that many of my Personal Training clients struggle on a day-to-day basis with food. This includes craving certain foods at certain times of the day, to continually thinking about food throughout the day, or allowing their day/mood to be based upon what the scales are telling them - & the list goes on.... Food has become an emotional issue right across the board, rather than as a means for fuelling the body. Relationships, careers, friendships & families are all affected by a persons pre-occupation with food. Food can be addictive & destructive - mentally, emotionally & physically.

Both weight-loss & weight-gain can dramatically affect your quality of life, your confidence & your health!

Life Coaching can help you recognise & address any issues you have with food. I can help correct negative behaviours by encouraging you to replace them with positive behaviours, to re-establish the healthy balance you once had - or to establish a healthy new balance you never felt you did have!

Positive change comes about when people feel in control & happy about their choices. I don’t think that by being angry with ourselves we can force ourselves to achieve any given goal. I work with clients to have them identify what’s really behind their desire for change & to help them see the way forward as a positive process, rather than a pressured effort to achieve an outcome.

It is not easy to make positive lifestyle changes & it’s even harder to make them stick. But when we feel empowered, we focus on what we can do, rather than what we can’t do. It's in this state that we can bridge the gap between where we are now & where we want to be. Life coaching can help you fill the gap that the addictive behaviour used to occupy, with new-found promise & potential. It can help you understand yourself better & reach a level of self-acceptance that will enable you to make smart choices based on who you really are. I think we can give more to others when we are living a life that is most closely aligned to who we really are. In doing so, we can also give others the confidence to be themselves & to be more accepting not only of themselves, but more accepting of others too.

There is a big difference between feeling low & unhappy & being clinically depressed. However, I believe that people can identify where they are to a degree, on a level of depression, with respect to their own life & experiences. Life Coaching can help a client recognise the feelings of inertia, lethargy & in-action by getting them to think about what is present in their life that is dragging them down & what’s missing from their lives in terms of happiness. This is where Life Coaching can be a very effective & positive intervention. For those people who can recognise symptoms of depression within themselves, compassionate Life Coaching can help them resist the pull towards deeper depression & help them move towards happiness & an improved quality of life.

Among the symptoms of depression are negative thoughts, low self-esteem & the inability to act positively. Life Coaching can help people fight back against those symptoms & break-through. It can help clients examine & change their thinking patterns, which can lead to powerful emotional & behavioural benefits. Very often people’s conclusions about themselves, their relationships with others & their options are all based on faulty logic, poor beliefs & over-generalisations.

Low self-esteem very often contributes to people’s inability to make & keep meaningful relationships. It can cause people to repeat un-healthy patterns as they don’t see a way to connect with other people feeling strong, confident & attractive. Examining their insecurities can help clients see themselves in a new, healthier, more productive light. Life Coaching can help people think about what they really want from their life & help them see the contradictory way in which they are actually living. Often, people can only recognise what’s missing, or what feels wrong about their lives. When what they really need to understand is how the choices they make can often work against them achieving what they say they want to achieve, & can in fact be sabotaging their chances of achieving what’s important to them, by refusing to act differently or make different choices.