Life coach mentor or Business Coaching

is always goal-oriented. That means a professional life coach wouldn't start working with you before there is a clearly defined coachable goal for the life coach-process itself. This enables both the client and the life coach to evaluate the success of life coaching-sessions.

Life Coaching

is limited in time. The life coach client decides how many sessions he or she wants to take and defines the intervals between the sessions. My personal experience is that many times single-session life coaching ignites so many new ideas and possibilities that there is no need for consecutive sessions for a long period of time, if ever. A life coach should try to make himself obsolete as fast as possible. Although life coaching is not therapy and no substitute for therapy - and a serious professional life coach would stop a coaching process if he or she has the feeling that the client needs therapeutic help - life coaching is as confidential as a therapeutic relationship. For more information see ethical standards.

Life Coaches

are solution-oriented. Instead of focusing on the past, on problems and their causes, a life coach focuses on generating solutions and new possibilities. Life Coaching works on the premise that the problem-cause relations are rather a construct of our mind more than a reality, and therefore can be re-constructed. In contrast to therapy - life coaching doesn't work on your potential deficits but tries to reinforce your individual resources. A life coach or mentor works with your personal strengths, not with your weaknesses. You could compare a life coach to a midwife. A midwife supports the mother during childbirth with the help of her special techniques, but giving birth is something only the mother can do by herself. Life Coaching is interactive without a hierarchy between coach and client. The relationship between a life coach and client is based on respect and acceptance. As opposed to a therapist, the life coach is not a person "who knows better than you what you should do" but rather a facilitator for your change-process.