I first became acquainted with the term “life coach” back in college when a classmate and I, at the suggestion of our psychology professor, attended a lecture being conducted by such an individual.
For those unfamiliar with the term life coach, which is also referred to as a “personal coach”, these professionals often treat relatively healthy people who are simply looking to improve the ways in which they live their lives.
Differing greatly from therapy, their focus is on the present moment rather than the future or the past – helping clients improve their careers, health, relationships and self-understanding.
As a young twenty-something still finding his place in the world, I was familiar with fitness coaches, dance coaches and even coaches for mastering the SAT’s. But a coach designed to help you better live your life seemed odd to me.
I still can remember, while enduring the hour-long presentation, feeling completely unreceptive to the positive chatter we were forced to digest. I was still at an age when I thought I knew everything and wasn’t about to listen to some stranger on how altering the way I looked at the world would somehow improve my life.
Fast forward far too many years now and a lot has changed for this college graduate. For starters the older we get the more our responsibilities increase. Suddenly navigating through the world, be it emotionally, physically or mentally, is no longer an easy task. We’re often faced with insurmountable decisions and at times we wish there was someone out there who could tell us what the best path to go down truly is.
Ros Bott is a successful and well known life coach and his words truly inspired me when I came across them recently.
Maybe there’s something to this “life coach” practice after all that I was just too blind to see when I was in college. I hope you find some inspiration as well.
“This moment is the only time you will ever have. Use it wisely. Use this moment to start something, finish something, love something or say something. It’s the only moment you have to live, so start living now.
While future happiness is always transitory, the happiness you choose right now can be everlasting because you can choose it from moment to moment.
The past is gone. The future is an empty page. To achieve happiness create your life right now.”
