Live smart: Get a life coach to navigate your way to success
It's lonely at the top, they say. However, the entrepreneurial journey can get a little easier if one has the support of a life coach
The entrepreneurial journey is rewarding but can be highly arduous too. More often than not, you must find your way and fight your challenges alone.
It is, however, a misconception that an entrepreneur has no other option than to tread alone on his or her path to business success. Most successful people seek help from the masters to navigate their way through the choppy waters of life. In today’s parlance, these navigators are known as ‘Executive Life Coaches.’
How does a life coach help you?
Let’s consider your entrepreneurial journey to be akin to that to a faraway destination that you have never been to. You know your destination and you will do anything to reach there. But you need a navigator to steer you through the ebb and flow of life.
A good executive life coach will understand your plans, the area of operation and the objective of your business. He or she will help you optimise the whole process by identifying the steps that can take you towards your goal. The importance of consultations with a life coach remains invaluable at every stage of your business operation.
There is a ‘goal’ in my pocket
The first step that a coach will guide you is through ‘goal setting’. This may look simple but has immense implications as it can transform the way you live. Despite being a simple activity that everyone is ideally capable of, people fail when it comes to goal setting. An executive life coach can keep you on track. An effective goal setting process will be outlined by your coach and this plan will motivate and energise you.
Goal setting also works as a stressbuster as it gives you a sense of accomplishment as you achiever one goal after another. A coach can help you learn how to set goals and follow them to completion by outlining tried and tested goal setting techniques. You will also learn how to break down your overall goals into smaller time-bound and actionable steps that will ensure constant progress towards the final results you hope to achieve.
Follow the leader
A coach can also teach you the art of leadership through processes that lead to consistent peak performances. Your coach cannot teach you how to become a business leader but he or she will show you how to improve your skills and knowledge. It is the sharpening of the saw for more effective performance.
Leadership can be on a personal level as well as at an organisational level. People need to understand their own potential and learn the art of spotting potential in others. It is a conditioning process through which one can set benchmarks for behaviour. Effective leadership is also about efficiently managing human resources and resolving any operational conflicts or issues arising out of company politics.
A time to win
Almost everyone in professional life has one common wish. ‘I wish I had more time on my hands!’
Let’s face the facts: whether it is you or Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos or anyone who ever walked on this planet, time treats everyone equally. Every human being only has 24 hours of 60 minutes each in a day and not a second more. Yet, successful and happy people seem to simply glide through a lot more than we can manage in a day despite working crazy hours. The problem is not the lack of time, but, the poor management of it.
It is only when we use tried and tested techniques of time management and make necessary modifications to our lifestyle that we can extract best value out of our time. Some of the most successful people seek support in order to manage the art of time management. A coach can help you identify your real needs and follow up with a time bound action plan.
It is important to figure out your priorities and assign value to the tasks that you do by forecasting their outcome. They help you compartmentalise your tasks into silos, such as, the most important tasks of the day, contingencies, stressbusters, down time etc.
All in a day’s work
As a founder or the leader-in-charge of your business, you are constantly wired into the business processes and wondering how to get all your tasks done. You want to have hands-on involvement in everything. However, as the leader, the more tasks you complete, the more tasks emerge on your To-Do list. Hence, delegation of work becomes crucial for business success. The truth is, no matter how resourceful or hardworking one be, nobody can do everything.
Delegation helps us focus only on the most important tasks of the day. A good life coach will help you discover how you can delegate tasks to others and free up your time. This process will not only enhance your quality of life, but, also the quality of your professional efforts as you are able to selectively focus on result-oriented areas of your business. A life coach will give you the ability to ‘let go’.
In the driver’s seat
A good coach will help you fine-tune your journey towards business success! While you will remain in the driver’s seat, you will always have an expert navigator by your side, who will help you reach your destination faster, safer and in the shortest time possible.