The Difference Between a Life Coach and a Counsellor

There are many varied therapists that people can access and as a potential client, you need to look at what type of therapy best suits you.

Life coaching and counselling are two very popular options; generally, counselling will look into a person’s past, with the view to deal with the individual’s emotional pain or conflict, often discussing past events.

A life coach on the other hand will focus on the persons present and future, helping them to set and achieve goals with a focus on setting new strategies to live by and by taking immediate action.

Let’s imagine you wanted to learn how to cook, but something was holding you back.

The counsellor would discuss with you what it is that is holding you back from cooking.

The counsellor will look at past events, maybe you had a trauma when you previous cooked in the kitchen.

The coach in this situation, would help you set goals and will look at the outcome “if you could cook in the kitchen, what would change in your life?” the coach would encourage, motivate and support you.

They would plan the different steps required to give you the skills and personal resources to happily enter the kitchen and create amazing dishes, this can include using NLP techniques to change the way you emotionally feel about a certain activity or event.

December 29, 2012December 18, 2020

3 Strategies for Coping with a Job You Hate

Sometime you will find yourself in a job you hate, in these situations don’t be rash and hand in your resignation before finding a career you love, first follow these 3 strategies for coping with a job you hate.

1. Job Planning

– by starting to plan for a new career you will feel you have a way out of the current job you hate, but it’s not good enough to just say I’m looking for a new job, you need to have a plan of action “I will see a career advisor on 12/12/25, I will apply for 5 jobs a week, etc. By having a plan of actions with dates you are much more likely to commit to them, as you start to see your success you will feel less stressed in your current position.

2. Reframe the Problem

– when looking to get a new job because you don’t like your current role there is always a reason. Maybe there are rumours of redundancies, your manager may be lazy and never does any work or maybe you asked by your boss to do extra work. This negative thinking can make you stressed and ill, which is not a good place to be in when your applying for new jobs.

First, write down what you don’t like about your job “lazy manager”, I’m asked to do all the work”, “I will have no income if I get made redundant” and then look at the positive to all these situations, by looking at the positives or by looking at the problems from a new perceptive will make you feel more positive and in control, and remember because your job hunting you not going to be there that long.

Example reframes “the potential redundancies have given me to the push I need, I have already found 3 jobs I could apply for which pay a higher salary” “Being asked to take on more work shows me that my employer values my work” “my boss not doing any work is a sign that he doesn’t know what he is doing”

3. Killer Reference

– Knowing you are going to leave is a great feeling, now you have made that decision you can go out with a bang. Pick a new project or task and put your all into it, make it a real success. Your line manager is now highly impressed with your work ethic and skills. Once you hand in your notice, you will know that they gutted that you are leaving especially when they hear that a competitor has recruited you because you have been seen through your last project as a valuable employee. After trying to get you to stay, the only thing they can do now to show their appreciation for your hard work is to offer you a killer reference.

If you enjoyed this article you will also enjoy reading

December 18, 2012December 18, 2020

Improve Your Performance Review

Most organisations complete regular performance reviews with their employees.

The performance review is designed to boost the employee’s motivation by highlighting their strengths while at the same time putting in a plan of action to help the employee to overcome any working barriers.

In this instance, the performance review should be a positive experience, but many employees see the performance review as a negative experience.

This is often because managers are not trained in coaching employees, and a performance review is in essence a coaching session.

3 steps to perform better in the performance review

1. Preparation for Performance

Most employees see the performance review as a dreaded task, where the employer will pick out the employee’s weaknesses, which can only result in the employee nervously answering the questions sometimes lying about their performance to get a more positive review.

In a team meeting explain what will happen in the performance review, how you will look at the employee’s strengths and skills, that the employee will be given a chance to discuss what would make them happier and motivated in work, explain that the employee will have a chance to discuss what training they require and where they want to progress to in the business long term.

In short, you need your staff to see the review as a positive session, so many businesses will use the performance review as a tool for redundancy criteria or as a tool that can affect the employees bonus – this can only result in an unrealistic session, the key to a performance review is honesty, the employee should be able to say what they like without it affecting their future at the company, this way the employer will end with a stronger workforce

2. Solution Focus

Many managers are trained to coach their employees by asking questions such as “why did that go wrong?” negative questions can only end with the employee feeling accused, worthless and unmotivated. Using solution focus questions such as “what would you do differently next time to get a better result?” allows the employee to feel valued, confident and open.

This will lead to the employees having an action plan to follow increasing their work output, while feeling positive and motivated.

3. Venue

In the workplace, rooms are often unconsciously allocated a feeling. “The dreaded bosses office where people go when they’re in trouble” the performance review should be delivered in a neutral room, where the “power chair” (the bosses chair) has gone.

This allows for a more relaxed air, and it is important that phones are turned off and a “do not disturb” sign is placed on the door – this rule sounds obvious but is rarely followed

If You Enjoyed This Article You Will Also Enjoy Reading:

December 10, 2012December 18, 2020

The 2 main reasons why doing something between jobs is so important

When between jobs it is easy to fall into a negative routine off staying up late watching a late-night movie, waking up past dinner time, which leads to a late breakfast and by the time you have finished watching the afternoon talk show the time for job searching is over.

To combat this negative routine job hunters need to fill their time between job searching and a second activity IE training, volunteering, etc.

There two main reasons to fill your time:

Reason One: from the employers point of view, when reading your CV a gap in your employment can look negative, with some employers generalising that gap means your lazy or you have served a short term prison sentence.

As with all generalisations this conclusion has no evidence, but once an employer has a negative thought about you it is hard to have a change of mind. So the first reason is, by volunteering or training you will have a gap-free CV

Reason Two: a job is more then just an income it is an identify, when being between jobs you can easily become down beat or depressed falling into that negative routine we discussed before.

By undertaking a training course or by volunteering, you will create a purpose, a positive routines and a new identity, in short you will feel good about yourself keeping you motivated during your new job applications and interviews.

If you enjoyed reading this article you will also enjoy reading:

Stop being so Stressed
The number one way to deal with criticism
Benefits of Coaching

December 10, 2012

Stop Being So Stressed

STOP BEING SO STRESSED

Stress is caused because people look at the negative of potential situations, this creates an internal focus which makes you feel sorry for yourself. As an example you have a bad day at work, you go home and feel sorry for yourself. While at home you think about the next day and imagine the worse – this imagine created in your imagination stresses you out; you blood pumps faster, you get headaches and you cant sleep. If this continues your stress will turn into a real illness, one of my clients stress levels lead to her hair falling out.

To stop stress happening in the first place, you need change your perception on future events (because no one knows what will happen in the future) when thinking about a future event, you need to shrink any negative images you create and replace them in your minds eye with a positive film. With the working example, you can imagine going into working having a great day, getting positive praise from a manger and feeling really proud of yourself.

Your mind doesn’t know what is real or what is created, if you imagine a positive event your mind will give you positive feelings, if you imagine feeling stressed your mind will sent signals to your body to feel stressed. In addition people respond different to you if your happy or stress, if you head to work feeling good colleagues and managers will respond more positive to you increasing your positive feelings and the opposite happens if your stressed, people will respond negatively to you, re-enforcing your stress levels.

If you enjoyed this article you will also enjoy reading

December 10, 2012

Do’s and Don’ts for Linkedin Business Users

Don’t – people mistakenly believe that they can join an industry forum on linked-in, add some blog post and increase the hits to their website. This doesn’t work and will only waste your time. Why because most people who use industry forums are business people like you, adding their own post in this pointless and poor marketing tool, which means they won’t read your post and you won’t read there’s. The click through rate on linked-in forums is low!!!

D0 – because loads of businesses use linked-in forums, you can use the businesses to promote your website. In the past I have welcomed linken-in business to write post for my blog giving them a free backlink, in return they will add my post to there site reaching new customers. I also tell the business to promote their article to their list and via social media which increases hits to my site. I have also posted group workings such as asking businesses to post positive comments on my blog, in return for me providing them a positive comment. Last year I made a group of 10 businesses who had free products to give away and wrote a blog post linking to these great giveaways (my give away featured at the top of the post) and then got all 10 companies to promote this amazing opportunity to their list (10 companies x on average 800 customers per list) this post got lots of hits and was featured on my blog.

If you enjoyed this post you will also enjoy reading

December 10, 2012

Influence the Interview Part 3

This final video will teach you how to influence the job interview using Psychology, NLP and Hypnotic Persuasion Techniques. In this third video of the series, Chris teaches you how to future pace the interviewer to make you an irresistible product

If you enjoyed this article you will also enjoy reading:

December 1, 2012

The Number One Rule for Dealing With Criticism

People are criticised on a regular basis from your partner telling you that you didn’t Hoover the stairs properly to your boss telling you the report you wrote wasn’t very good.

The best way to deal with criticism is to put a different and more positive approach on the accusation.

My friend recently said to me she felt down after putting on some extra weight after eating too much cake at her child’s birthday party, which I replied with “so, what your saying is the extra cake you ate is a sign that you had fun and were enjoying yourself at your child’s party?”

It doesn’t matter what you are accused off, it’s how you respond and reframe the question that is important. All you have to do is take the criticism and talk about it from a different angle, whatever you NEVER defend yourself or you will only look as guilty as charged.

Real life examples and the responses you can use

“You’re not very creative” Response “so, what you’re saying if I show you a creative idea you will think I’m more creative?”
“Why do you never understand what I mean?” Response “so, what you mean is, if I summaries what you have asked me to do after each instruction, you will know that I understand you”
“Why are you always late?” Responses “are you asking what has happened in my private life, to make me late for the past few days?”

By not getting defensive and by turning the question around and getting specific means your manager has to agree or answer your question; with the first question (creative) the person can only agree with you or look stupid. The second question (understanding) here you have changed the question, its no longer about you not understanding it is about you confirming your understanding and the third example, (lateness) the rude person will first feel embarrassed but the conversation has moved from you being late to the reason why.

If you enjoyed reading this article you will also enjoy reading:

December 1, 2012

Communication – The New UK Export

Communication is the new export, with information, news and advice being sold worldwide often via the internet. A communication degree can open many doors for you, as part of your course you will specialise journalism, public relations, speech or advertising. Once qualified graduates can apply for positions in companies in all job sectors from retail to construction.

The barrier that older people face is that they don’t think they will secure work after their degree, wrongly believing that the younger graduate will be snapped up. This limiting belief is wrong and often comes from the belief that employers want to recruit a younger person as they will stay in the position for much longer, as the older applicant will retire a lot sooner then the younger counterpart.

The truth is, and employers are very aware of this, is that most employees work in one company on average for 3-5 years before jumping ship, with many career professionals changing careers 3 times in their life time. In fact if an employer is keen to recruit someone who is likely to stay with their company for 5 years + they are more likely to recruit the older graduate as research has shown that it is the older job hunter who will, once offered a position stay with that one company until he retires in 10, 15 or even 20 years.

If You Enjoyed Reading This Article You Will Also Enjoy Reading

December 1, 2012

Influence the Interview Part Two

In this second video, you will learn how to sell yourself in the interview, this video won’t just teach you how to sell yourself this video will give you the secret Structure of Answering the Interview Question – the interview structure comprises of just THREE steps and will give you the edge on other interviewees.

If You Enjoyed This Article You Will Also Enjoy Reading: