When do you need a life coach?

As a new kid on the block, life coaching as a discipline is widely misunderstood and at times undeservingly criticized.
Many people out there who could really thrive with life coaching support don't seem to find the coach they are looking for, this is a shame and something that needs to be changed. I won't get into the reasons for this but I will say that they are diverse, they include a lack of professional accreditation, an agreement on what exactly is and is not coaching, who is capable of being a reputable coach, how is one to decide what represents "good coaching", how is success measured as well as a plethora of strong marketing hype that can confuse the heck out of everybody and create a fog over the whole area.

I would like to pose some basic questions that will help you out there focus and come to the conclusion that it is coaching you are looking for and not one of the many other kinds of support offered everywhere.
As in many areas of human support, there is always going to be overlap between different modalities, with the most important thing being not the modality but the individual who you will be working with.
Things that are unfortunately amorphous and definitely not the kind of resume stuff you will see will always be critical: the power of the relationship, the "chemistry" between the parties and the style of conversation and thinking that is very particular to each and every one of us. Nevertheless, here is a list of ten questions that should give you a feel if it is coaching that you should be considering:

Are you feeling stuck and "not moving" in terms of things you say you would like to do and are not actually doing them?
Coaching is great for helping find those "sticking points" and propel you into action.
Action, in general, will always be strongly correlated with good coaching.

Are you having great difficulty in making decisions?
Check in with coaching, it can be enormously helpful in getting clarity on what you feel about things and getting your own thinking clear with yourself?

Are you feeling "all over the place", chasing a different idea every day but not actually pursuing any of them? Focus is a key point and a strength of coaching.

Are you in need of some "big picture thinking" in developing a vision that will pull you forward into the future?
Check into coaching and its power to trust in the future and inspire actions to create that future.

Are you feeling lonely in your thoughts, ideas, plans and decision-making?
A good coach is a great partner to team with you on your most important "project", whatever that may be.

Are you feeling that you are deep "inside your comfort zone" and believe that to get outside the comfort zone is what you need? Check into getting a coach to give you feedback and support to get that courage you may need on your side.

Do you feel a lack of knowledge on how to access, leverage and utilize different resources and networks? Coaching can be a great asset in building resources for your benefit.

Are you in need for someone to keep you accountable to dates, actions, deadlines and goals? Definitely, coaching should be on your list of support you might need.

Are you feeling that you want to go from "good" to "great" on the results you are getting from a certain aspect in life?
Coaching is a great catalyst for self-improvement.

Do you want support that will be inherently short-term (several months on the average) and not have to worry about financing a long-term support framework?
Coaching is by nature a short-term, goal-focused support modality.

There are more points, of course, but I trust that after you have reflected on the questions above you will have a good feel if getting a coach is what may be in order.
How to go about finding a coach is already a different subject, Whatever you do, please do remember the world of George Eliot, as these are the words that have moved me from the inside ever since I discovered coaching some 14 years ago:

"It is never too late to be what you might have been".

In Hebrew, we toast each other with the word, "lechaim!", which literally means "to life!" In my book, coaching is a pursuit of the heart, "life coaching" is coaching for life! Lechaim to you and your journey up ahead!

Let's Control what we CAN Control

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"Why worry about the things you can't control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you." - John C. Maxwell

As human beings we are always fretting about something. It doesn't matter if it is small or big, whether we are old or young, whether we are alone or together. 
Fretting, worrying, anxiety, stress is all about what the mind does with the body, what the body is doing with the mind. 
The fact of the matter is that most of our life is really beyond our control- our genes, our history, the family we were born into, and so on. 
But there are the things that we CAN control, what about those?

In coaching, we are forever steering our clients into the direction of what CAN be controlled, helping them get out of their comfort zone, into pro-active mode, focused, energetic, positive and stretched, in line with their values and goals.

Shanti-deva, an 8th century Indian Buddhist priest and scholar said the following:

I​​f you can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying? 
If you cannot solve it, then what is the use of worrying?
– Shantideva

We certainly have a lot to influence and control. Can we afford not to allow ourselves the strength, focus, clarity and drive to make this work for us?
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Change Happens Deep

I have read that our whole bodies absorb about 11 million bits of information per second, but that the conscious mind can process only approximately 16 of them. 
That’s a ratio in the range of a million to one! Obviously our conscious minds cannot be counted on to process very much....
Think about that when you are trying to make change! 
Change is much more about changing your internal messages than the obvious external ones. 
It happens at a deeper level, and THAT is why processes such as coaching help so much- they move you at a deeper level than the talk itself...

Problems and Opportunities

"Inside of every problem lies an opportunity." – Robert Kiyosaki

I remember when I was young that I asked my father what the word "intelligence" was, his answer was something that he said he had once heard from a college professor: "Intelligence is the ability to solve problems." I don't know how about this definition but I do know that there are various kinds of intelligence and each of them works differently.

I also know that there are umpteen different kinds of problems and each of them causes us to think of what to do about them.
Thus, it is clear that problems can create opportunity for growth as we try to solve them.

From here it is just a stone's throw away to see that a problem is not really something to fear, run away, avoid looking at, rather it is a challenge to find the opportunity inside.

I realize that this is a bit abstract for many people. 

For others it seems "impractical" and unnecessarily philosophical.
I disagree. I feel that learning to live, deal with, grow from and leverage problems is a great skill to develop. I am not sure I have it down quite yet but I am working on it. And by working on it we are already doing something to solve the problem, thus helping ourselves "grow into it".
Pretty cool if you ask me…

Capital is Much More than Money

In my opinion, we live in a "money-crazed" society. 

That is not to say that money is inherently a "bad" thing, it does have its place in life but it is not life in and of itself! 

How often I find people endow the "money thing" with extreme power over them: it makes them sick with worry, burning with envy, seething with greed and addicted to fear of losing it. Capital is more than money, life offers many sources of "capital as "capital" is  basically a resource from which one can grow, develop and create things in the world.

Nippun Mehta, the Silicon Valley owner of "ServiceSpace", has presented a fascinating idea that he delivered at a TedX talk in 2016 in the US. 

ServiceSpace is an incubator of projects that works at the intersection of volunteerism, technology and the gift-economy. 

What started as and experiment of 20+ year olds in 1999 in Berkeley, California, has now developed into a global ecosystem of over 400,000 members who have delivered millions of dollars of services for free. 

Far from being a bunch of idealistic, new-agey, middle-class kids, ServiceSpace has attracted a huge crowd of followers who are attracted to new ways of living in this world, mostly be offering kindness and projects of value as part of human service, rather than financial transactions.

Mehta speaks of many kinds of capital: time, technology, attention, knowledge, nature, culture, among others. When we give of our time we create value, technology can create new realities, giving attention creates relationship, and so on. 

In our "money-crazed world", we have lost site of the types of resources that are not money and yet present huge potential for creative "doing" in the world. 

I admire Mehta and his followers for showing me- and many others- that it is not money that makes the world go around but people, kindness, love and relationship. 

Pure "capital" if you ask me. Many lessons to be learned, many, many…

Authenticity and Happiness

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Wouldn't it be fascinating to research the subject, "The history of lies"? 
As far out as this seems, and, yes, it does seem more like scientific fiction than anything else, it would be a tremendous boost to human knowledge and behavior! 
Somewhere along the line, somewhere in evolution, human beings began to "discover" the lie, i.e., how to build a divide between what they think, what they say and what they do. 
In many ways it has long become a societal "standard" and we don't think too much about it. But the damage is clear- is it not? 
The minute one begins to divide up thought from emotion and action one begins to lose energy, vitality, impact and yes…Passion for life!

Can a person walk one way, move his head in another way and keep his body in the same place? 
Obviously not. So why do we think we can do it with our thoughts, feelings and actions?

In the traditional East they talk much about "centering", in Japan it is the "hara", in Chinese it is the "Tan tien", in India it is the same, only a different word. To me "centering" is authenticity, and in the words of Mahatma Ghandi, it is also happiness.
In Hebrew there is an old saying that goes, "His mouth and his heart are equal". Same idea, same wisdom.
Authenticity IS Happiness, but apparently, it takes a lot of "undoing" to get there. Sounds so simple, no?...

What Aikido Taught me about Creating in Life

In my coaching clinic at home there is really just one certificate that stands out for me in its significance and value. 

It isn't the International MBA from a prestigious American institution, nor my diplomas in such areas as Human Resources, Buddhism and Agriculture, and not even the honorary this and that of all kinds of activities. 

It is my Sho-Dan, first degree black-belt certificate in Aikido that I earned in Japan over 30 years ago. 

Why, you may ask, what's the big deal?

When I got my black belt certificate after only 2 years in Osaka, Japan (it is customary to get it early in Japan), I felt that I had not earned any great achievement because learning Aikido was a lifetime thing after all. 

As my teacher would tell me, "Ronnie, you deserve what you earned but don’t forget that from here on you are now just considered a "serious student". 

Aikido to me in those days was the focus of my life- all the rest of the stuff, including the teaching of English to Japanese corporate managers and housewives were all secondary. 

Aikido was taking me deep inside as well as high above, all while I was learning to take the falls on the Aikido mats.

Life had it that within a few years I would discontinue my Aikido practice, no big ideological rift, just moves from Japan to Taiwan, to Israel, to the US, back to Israel, and on the way new things, teachers, patterns and routines came up. 

The "soft" Chinese internal martial arts (T'ai Chi Chuan, Bagwa Chuan) entered my life, years later yoga re-entered but for the most part there was a vacuum, an absence of practice. 

Yet, I never have stopped "dreaming Aikido", it amazes me just how deeply ingrained the movements and energy of those years appeared in my life.

Aikido is much more than a martial art, in fact to my mind, it is much more of a way of life than a martial practice.
Aikido, founded in Japan by Morihei Ueshiba (known as "O-Sensei), in the years between the two world wars of the twentieth century, developed a deep philosophy and "way of harmony", of peace and non-violence, of protecting the opponent and of neutralization and flexibility of mind and body.
To me, all these terms seemed unusual to be juxtaposed to "martial training", even in the larger sense of the word. I did "get it", after some time, at least to my understanding: Aikido is really about creating options.
There are thousands of Aikido techniques and new ones are being created all the time. Aikido talks of posture, centering, breathing, alignment, relaxation, swiftness, depth, and so much more. As in Aikido, so it is in life.

Aikido is about "creating options", there are the physical movements called "waza", but they represent and train deeper "spiritual" or "psychological" perspectives.
For example, in the words of the  American Aikido teacher, George Leonard, " What do you do when somebody pushes you?
With any kind of push, whether a shove or strike or kick, the aikidoist generally moves toward the attacker and slightly off the line of attack, simultaneously making a turning maneuver that leaves him or her next to the attacker and facing in the same direction. 

In this position, the aikidoist is looking at the situation from the attacker's viewpoint. It's important here to add one more phrase to that statement.
The aikidoist is looking at the situation from the attacker's viewpoint without giving up his or her own viewpoint.

This entering and blending maneuver immediately multiplies your options.
Thousands of techniques and variations have been identified in aikido, all of which become possible once you've blended.
The same thing is true when you blend verbally, when instead of meeting a verbal attack with a verbal counterattack you respond first by coming around to your attacker's point of view, seeing the situation from his or her viewpoint.
This response, whether physical or verbal, is quite disarming, leaving the attacker with no target to focus on.
At that point, numerous options present themselves, including, best of all, the clear possibility of a reconciliation that meets the needs of both parties."

Aikido is not always about "blending", of course, but it is always about being able to see a larger scope, new ways of experiencing movement and energy, always from a vantage point of how is damage limited, violence avoided, resolution gained.
Today, with the hindsight of 13 years of coaching, I can see very clear how my "coach training" started some 32 years ago in Japan when I first entered an Aikido dojo.

Coaching, in my book is so very much about creating options, new realities, being earnest, authentic, committed. Being able to "see the world from others eyes" is not a simple matter, but for those of us who have had the privilege of tasting and internalizing Aikido, it really has become part of our "invisible toolbox".

I am sometimes amazed how it is after all these years that I still "dream Aikido", often find myself contemplating the moves and the movements.
In a very profound sense, I have come to understand, Aikido is in my coaching, my coaching is really Aikido.
That is my version of the harmony of Aikido.