Kristi McClanahan, ACG (ADD Coach Academy Graduate), is a life coach who works with both parents and children, including children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Last week I
interviewed Kristi about life coaching and how it can be beneficial to single parents.
First, in case you’re wondering what I’m talking about: a life coach is a person who’s professionally trained to help people achieve balance and fulfillment in their lives in such areas as career, interpersonal relationships, health and fitness, and finances. Life coaching can help you take action to create the changes you want in your life.
Q. What can a life coach do for a single parent?
A. A coach can give a single parent somebody else to talk to; somebody who is not going to give you all the answers, but who will ask questions. A coach will help you design the type of life you want to live.
A coach gives you a person for you, completely for you. The coach listens and helps you design your life the way you want it to be. It’s about, what do you want, and how can we get you there?
A single parent might say, ‘I want to have a better quality of life with my children,’ or ‘I need to find more time for myself.’ The coach will say, ‘OK, let’s figure out how to do that.’ They’re going to ask questions and help you figure it out.
Q. What about single parents who think it’s selfish, or who feel guilty about, taking care of themselves?
A. You’ve always got to be thinking, ‘What am I modeling for my child?’ Do you want to be modeling for your child, ‘You’ve got to sacrifice yourself and you can’t have a life?’ Every time you say, ‘I can’t think about myself,’ you’re telling your child, ‘When you grow up, you can’t think about yourself either.’
If someone said, ‘I feel guilty about making time for myself,’ the coach will keep asking questions to see what would be good about it if he or she did make time. We’re about goals, about life goals. We say, ‘This is what you want; what’s getting in the way? What will get you there?’
Coaching gives you permission to say, ‘I can create the life that I want’; a life that is very good for you and that is modeling what you want to model for your child.
Q. Why can’t I just talk to a friend?
A. It’s very hard to put yourself aside. Coaches really learn how to put ourselves aside. It’s not that we won’t share something if it’s relevant; but we’d ask your permission first.
Another thing is, we listen without judging your goals. A coach won’t say ‘This is a good goal’ or ‘That’s a bad goal.’ Your goals are your goals. This is what you want to accomplish? OK, then let’s see how we’re going to get you there.
Q. What about the single parent who always feels pulled in a million directions? Can you help with that?
A. Coaching is about asking powerful questions to get that person to the place where they can figure out what they want to do first. We might say, ‘Let’s just write down the things you’d like to accomplish.’ Usually, once you get it down, you can decide what the most important things are. There’s no right or wrong; the coach says, ‘Let’s explore.’
As you give yourself permission to let yourself look at your life, in a very supportive, non-judgmental place, then the real you can emerge.
Q. Why is this “permission” so important for single parents?
A. Because this is what single parents rarely get: somebody who lets them have that space and just be; who gives them permission to explore and find out what they want.
For single parents, there’s never enough time in a day. When you take an hour a week for yourself, when you give yourself permission, I really think that makes a difference.
Single parents have too many demands on their time and not enough support. They’re judging themselves; there’s so much pressure. You need a place where you don’t feel pressure, where you don’t feel like someone’s going to think, ‘She’s doing it wrong.’ A coach provides support and encouragement. He or she allows you to be, to go where you need to go.
You just need a person who will give you permission to be yourself and who’ll help you find the answers to get the life you want. If single parents took some time for themselves, they’d have more energy to do the things that they want to do.
Q. How does coaching work?
A. You design the session with the coach: ‘This is what I’d like to accomplish.’ It’s always designed around you – what your goals are.
The coach’s job is to keep asking questions until the person finds his or her answers; the coach helps you find your own answers. The coach will always come back the next week and make sure that you’re reaching the goals that you want to.
When you tell somebody else that you want to accomplish a particular goal, there’s accountability for you; it helps you make it happen. If you know that you’re going to talk to your coach next week, you’re not just going to let that goal evaporate. It’s positive accountability! Accountability for your goals, for the life that you want. It’s not something that’s just a wish, it’s something you can plan for and follow up on.
Coaching gives you some structure to work on your goals. If you didn’t have your coach, you might say, ‘I’m going to work on my goals,’ but without any kind of structure, you may not get to it. You can design your life, but a coach will help you purposefully design the life you want. ‘This is what I want, this is what I want to get,’ and if you’re not getting there, you can figure out why, instead of just letting life happen. You can figure out the life that you want!
If something’s not working, a coach will say, ‘Why is that not working for you?’ They’ll ask you questions and help you figure out what will work for you. The next week, they’ll say, ‘How did that work for you? How did that go?’
Q. How affordable are the services of a life coach?
A. Well, there are different costs for coaches. The average is probably several hundred dollars a month. But one of the things that I see is that people who deny themselves, who don’t want to spend money on themselves, usually don’t ever change their lives if they don’t value the changes that could happen as a result.
Coaching isn’t cheap, but there are other ways to do it. There’s group coaching, which is less expensive. I know that money can be an issue. If you sit down and look at quality of your life, if you believe that coaching will enhance your life, then you may be able to find a way (to afford it).
Just going through a coaching experience, even if it’s not forever, just going through the process to see how to work on a goal, might be better than never doing it. You get some exposure to how to design your life, to how to set a goal and reach it. A coach will help you take that time out for yourself. It might be better to pay for that, to get that experience, if you can’t do it for any length of time.
If your life is hard and you’re not getting any satisfaction from it, then the long-term repercussions of that may be more expensive than coaching!
Generally, I think that people who are coached will be more successful in their lives because they give themselves permission to look at what their goals are and how to reach them. You’ve got to look at the value of that to your life.
Q. Where do you go to find a good coach?
A. The web site of the International Coach Foundation (ICF) is a good place to look (http://www.coachfederation.org/ICF/).
You don’t have to be in the same state as the coach because coaching is usually done over the phone. Go to the ICF to find a coach that’s qualified; it’s the governing body for the coaching profession.
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To find yourself a coach, go to this link at the ICF web site:
http://www.coachfederation.org/ICF/For+Coaching+Clients/Find+a+Coach/Coach+Referral+Service/
Kristi McClanahan’s web site: