Her coach worked with her to first identify what her goal was – it turned out that quitting her job was not really her goal. She just wanted to live a happy and healthy life and her work was in fact, getting in her way. No wonder it was making her so unhappy.

Having identified the things which give her happiness, she worked with her coach to design a life that would be practical for her. What do you know – she decided to keep her job. She was able to work and be happy, both at the same time. This was what she wanted. To work and to be happy. After 6 weeks of engaging with her coach, with one hour sessions every week, here she was – busy, earning money and happy!

Who says you can’t buy happiness? Tried a coach?

Who is a Life Coach anyways?..

A Life Coach, in simple terms is someone you helps you clarify your thinking, so you are able to move from Point A to Point B. A life coach brings you back to being accountable for your life and enables you to inspire yourself to get to where you want to be. A life coach helps you in getting your self confidence back by simply being there and listening to you.

It would be incorrect to say that a Life Coach solves your problems because he / she really enables you to find the answers to your problems within yourself.

What does a coach do?..

A coach would not advise you or share an opinion with you unless you solicit it. Coaching is a journey and hence, expecting results in one conversation is not realistic. A set of 6-8 sessions is typically recommended for you to start experiencing the benefits of coaching.

How much does a coach cost..?

Coaches can be hired across a broad range depending on their experience, qualifications and brand. Usually, first sessions are offered for free. In case you are unable to pay for coaching, you could hire someone for free! There are many coaches who are looking for pro-bono assignments so look around, contact coaches on LinkedIn or google them or write me a message

Picking a Coach..?

You can pick your coach by looking at their profiles on websites like noomi.com or others. Give it a shot! After all, what have you got to lose?

Most of us, I believe, have landed into our lives, by default. It has really been a series of events and decisions and circumstances which have led us to be where we are.

Most of the clients I coach, while they have different areas of focus in their lives, are really trying to get to a stage where they live the life that they have wanted to live. The reason that they have not yet started living it yet is very simple and applies to most of us, you and me included. It is simply that we never made the time to think about the life we want to lead and hence, never made plans to live it. If we did, we perhaps did that as a one time activity and lost track of it as life events took over.

As a result, we ended up in a default life, which was a result of things that transpired, most of which we would argue were out of our control. Even the ones which were in our control, were never evaluated in the context of the life we want to lead.

Here we are, wanting to do things, be someone that we are not. Coaching helps you get from point A to point B and helps you cover the distance, starting by helping you identify both the A and B coordinates to begin with.

So if you know the kind of life you want to live and are looking for some tips on how to get there, get a coach! A coach will help you find answers to some of the questions below and then, your life is yours to live, just as you designed it. You could answer these for yourself too! Try it!

Q1. What are the top 3 things of most value to you?

Q2. What does your dream life look like?

Q3. What are the things that you are tolerating in your life?

Q4. What are the 3 things you need to change to become happier?

Q5. What 3 things you can start doing to live your dream life?

Q6. What things are stopping you from living your dream life?

Q7. What can you do to remove hurdles that are stopping you?

Q8.Whom do you need to convince to start living your dream life?

Q9.How can u prepare for the challenges your new life may bring?

Q10.Are you ready and willing to allow the change into your life?

Do remember to celebrate each milestone that brings you closer to your dream life. After all, this has got to be your most critical project ever, right?

We would love to hear how you are doing and if these questions have helped you move ahead towards designing your life.

While career is of high importance to us as women, as we seek stimulation, challenges, achievement and enrichment in our work, choosing between family and work is a very challenging task and a very stressful one too if done on a daily basis. Which is why, many women, and you may be one of them, choose to slow down, take a less demanding position or seek new career options following childbirth. Data shows that this may be due to the father not contributing adequately to child raising responsibilities or lack of viable child care support or other cultural or economic factors. Professional women like yourself, find themselves caught in a double bind between the competing models of the ideal worker and ideal parent and often struggle to make a choice. Persistent conflict can lead to burn-out and related issues such as emotional exhaustion, reduced sense of personal accomplishment and decreased psychological wellbeing. Increasing attention has been given to high-achieving women who appear to be leaving their careers in favor of staying home full-time to raise children. Some interpret this trend as reflecting these women’s embrace of a “new traditionalism,” a rejection of feminist goals in favor of more traditional gender roles.

Although family concerns figure prominently, that is not the major reason behind most women’s career decisions. It is also possible that because mothers spend less time at work than non-mothers, mothers have smaller and less close internal networks. Specifically, women have cited the lack of a network of contacts as being a barrier to re-entering the workforce.

In summary, the key issues related to working mothers are as follows:

1. Lack of networks

2. Self esteem at not being at par with peers who are working full time

3. Frustration on not getting adequate recognition at work / home

4. Conflicting life interests

Not surprisingly, then, in a survey I conducted of 100 moms across countries, the top most priorities for working moms emerged as how to lead a less stressful and happier life followed by how to earn more money.

Despite all known challenges and attrition rates, employers perhaps have not yet cracked the secret of retaining working moms and sustaining their engagement levels. In the same survey of 100 women, following emerged as the key characteristics of their current/intended work life that women would not like to compromise on included (in order of priority):

a) Flexible structuring of work day depending on ability to work given personal situation,

b) Ability to take a varied level of responsibility as and when required,

c) Ability to take time off as and when required for as long as required

While employers take their time to figure out how to model some innovative careers around these preferences, want to know what other moms around the world are doing to sustain their careers? Recent surveys have also shown that the women with children have also made significant advancements in management. Though they are:

a) working for little less hours per week but still they are

b) progressing by utilizing their past experiences and

c) training and development sessions.

Women with children,

d) use education as a way to enhance their knowledge while they are on small career breaks.

I am one of them. I started by deciding I want to live my life by design. I crafted an ideal week for myself and worked backwards to see what I would need to do to make that a reality. Quitting my job was a critical step for me, without which, I knew I would continue to live in the world of stress which is so not what we aspire for.

So, what choice would you like to make? Will you choose to gift yourself a life of happiness that you know you deserve?

To consult a life and career coach who can help you choose the answers that lie within you, write to me at namrata.arora.singh@gmail.com

It is the ‘now’ that we often miss out on the most, often spending time in our past, which is long gone and best forgotten or in our future, which is uncertain and not in plain sight.

Being able to help the clients see their lives with gratitude, every aspect of it, very often helps them in appreciating that happiness lies in the present moment.

Sieze the moment. Live each day. Unleash the power of now in your life and in the lives of others you touch.

You may also like to read posts from my fellow coaches at the links below:

Esme Gosling – Money Coach http://bit.ly/xu0bLi

Sandra Seibert – Joyful Growth Coach http://joyfulgrowthcoach.com/2012/02/the-power-of-now-a-moment-of-stillness/

Renee Vos de Wael – Intuitive Coach  http://reneevosdewael.com/2012/02/20/is-the-power-now/

Tracy Coan – Bodacious Possibilities http://bodaciouspossibilities.com/2012/02/choose-you-choose-now/

 Jayde Gilmore – Wings LifeCoaching http://wingslifecoaching.tumblr.com/

 Brandy Morris-Chaudhry – Illuminated Perspective http://www.illuminatingpotential.com/

 Nuria Lencina – Coachinu http://coachinublog.com/2012/02/20/the-power-of-now/

 Pamela Rudisill – In Sight Life Coaching http://insightlifecoaching.co/2012/02/20/the-power-of-now/

 Kenetha Stanton – Chrysalis Wellness http://www.chrysalis-wellness.com/2012/02/20/the-power-of-now/

 Louise Gray – Communication Coach, Learner Focused Coaching http://learnerfocusedcoaching.com/2012/02/20/what-was-i-saying/ ‎

 Jenn Brockman – Kick Ass Website Coach http://kickasswebsitecoach.com/the-power-of-now

 Rebecca Macfarlane – Turning Stones Coaching (Business Start Up and Career Coach) http://wp.me/p1xmJl-dZ

Why do employees leave? There is always one answer to this question – the organization can no longer provide what the employee wants. This could be financial in nature, it could be based on one’s work or driven by some other need. While coaching cannot help address all issues that drive employees to leave, coaching can be introduced at various junctures in an organization to engage employees and to pre-empt attrition.

• Integration Coaching for new joiners -Getting new hires to settle into their roles, integration coaching can even be extended to executives moving into new roles across functions within large organizations, in which case this could be construed as Role Transition Coaching

• Performance Coaching – Focusing this on consistent performers is perhaps the best bet as it is the consistent performers which form the backbone of an organization

• High Performance Coaching - Focusing this on consistent performers is perhaps the best bet as it is the consistent performers which form the backbone of an organization

• Coaching for High Performers – This could be offered as an incentive offered by organizations to its high performers and help them create and implement their overall development plans

• Life Transition Coaching - This could be very relevant to employees who have experienced a drastic transition in their lives on account of a personal loss or loss of position or are considering changing their careers or exiting

None of this is to be confused with counseling or mentoring, which is perhaps what many organizations are offering today. While counseling and mentoring are useful for resolving the issue which is immediate in nature, coaching helps plug the much talked about gap of employee engagement.

So what is employee engagement again? It is about engaging employees. While people can be engaged in groups for meeting common needs, no individual can be engaged without an individual focus. If you are an HR professional or a business leader, you are probably thinking – great but supervisors just don’t have the time! Well – that’s what coaches are for! If organizations zero in on their disengaged employees, who have been in the organization for more than 3 years or those who are high performers or those who are clearly high potential employees and assign coaches to them, employee engagement stands to improve multifold. Most of these people are power centers in organizations and hence, focusing on them, would ensure that the others follow suit.

So - having read this, what do you think would be a good logical next step for you?

Look out for my upcoming blog on how to go about selecting the right coaches for your organization.

http://icfheadquarters.blogspot.in/2012/01/pricing-blended-coaching-offering.html