Life Coaching: A Career for the 21st Century

“Your life only gets better when you do.”

– Brian Tracy

Interesting times

“May you live in interesting times” is said to be the English translation of an ancient Chinese curse.

I would argue that times have never been more ‘interesting’ than they are today.

The 21st century has subjected us to unprecedented change, some of which is positive but a lot of which is, frankly, disturbing.

On the plus side:

• The advent of the Internet has provided us with more opportunity for personal empowerment than at any time in our past.
• Information, and therefore education, is more widely available and accessible than ever before.
• Human rights and personal freedoms are more widely respected and protected than at any time in the past.
• Huge advances in medical technology are helping us to live longer lives.
• We are far better connected and more readily accessible to each other than in the past.

On the downside:

• Our population is growing rapidly. We are now well over seven billion on the planet and counting. Rapid urbanisation is creating mega cities with all the health, transport and infrastructural challenges that involves.
• Our climate is becoming increasingly unpredictable. Droughts and floods are more severe and destructive storms more frequent and more intense.
• Seismic, solar and geomagnetic activity on the planet has been proven to be increasing.
• The world order, as we have become accustomed to it, is transforming – as evidenced by the global financial crisis, populist uprisings, increasing militarism, the decline of the US and the rise of China.
• The rise in connectivity caused by advances in communications technology have created an ‘always on’ culture robbing us of personal downtime needed for reflection, recharge and recuperation.

More is less

On balance, we humans are more educated, more connected and more liberated than those who went before us … but we are also more time-starved, stressed, confused and anxious.

Coping in a turbulent world

Despite the rapid change and development that has characterised the 21st century, mankind is generally no happier or more fulfilled.

In fact, as the pace of change ramps up, there are signs everywhere that people are becoming more disconnected from their inner beings and are adopting a ‘coping’ mentality just to get them through what is an increasingly turbulent life.

Drum roll please …. This is fertile ground for life coaching and life coaches.

The antidote to stressful living

I often like to call life coaching the antidote for stressful living in the 21st century.

In essence, life coaching helps people to reconnect with their inner power and diminish their reliance on the validation of others and the external world.

Through life coaching, people are reminded that, no matter how changeable and unpredictable the world we live in, there is a powerful alternative to ‘coping’ – namely to take back the initiative and create one’s own reality.

An extract from Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘If’ springs to mind here:

“If you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs, and blaming you … The world will be yours and everything in it and – which is more –
you\’ll be a man, my son.”

A vital catalyst

Life coaching was popularised in the 1990s by celebrities who were the first to experience the benefits of this emerging discipline. Unfortunately, this prompted many people to make the assumption that hiring a life coach is a self indulgence or luxury for those with more money than they can spend.

That, today, is simply not true.

On the contrary, life coaching, for what it can achieve, is surprisingly affordable. It offers a vital catalyst for all those who choose to take their lives beyond the mediocre, reach for their dreams and experience greater personal freedom, self confidence and growth.

Do you feel the calling?

Perhaps you feel called to help people prosper in these challenging times? If so, please contact us for more information on becoming a certified life coach. Please use one of the website links below.