There are many reasons why you may seek the guidance of a life coach. You might need support through a difficult transition or event, have a desire to improve your mindset, want to progress toward a particular career path, or you might even be looking for help in discovering a sense of purpose in life.

While a life coach can definitely help you improve a particular area of your life, there are four overarching benefits of working with a life coach, rather than trying to go it alone.

Those benefits are:

1. Undivided focus

It’s all about you. It’s great to talk things through with friends and family when you’re troubled, but how many times have you started a conversation on one issue only to have it weave a complicated path to somewhere wholly unrelated?

When you work with a life coach, you can be confident that the topics you want to talk about will be the sole focus of the conversation. That means you make faster progress and won’t feel like you’re burdening someone close to you or expecting more of their time than they can give.

2. You gain perspective

Rather than receiving advice which you follow blindly, one of the benefits of working with a life coach is that they’ll help you gain perspective yourself. This is possible because your coach will encourage you to ask the right questions. It’s amazing how when you start to make the right inquiries, this helps your brain perceive a problem or situation in a different way.

A life coach will also encourage you to positively frame any challenges you face, so that rather than seeking a negative solution (I want to stop overthinking everything), you’re instead looking for a positive solution (I want to enjoy healthy thought patterns). These kinds of tools will be helpful not just during your time with your coach, but will better equip you when you need perspective in other areas or at other times in your life too.

3. You’re held accountable

Let me ask you a question … When you set out to achieve something, do you think it’s easier to reach your goal when you have support?

One of the benefits of working with a life coach is that you have an accountability partner. If you lose momentum, they’ll be right there to pick you up and remind you of what you’re working towards, and the importance of it.

There’s also a subconscious element to accountability. When you know someone is going to ask about your progress, there are only three options:

1. Do the thing
2. Avoid the person or lie about it
3. Admit you haven’t done it

There’s clearly only one good option there, and your subconscious mind knows it!

But when I talk about accountability, I want to emphasize something. A life coach isn’t there to judge you but to be your ally in achieving your dreams. Sharing your goal with a coach helps it feel real, possible and attainable.

4. You receive unbiased support

When you seek support and advice from family and friends, it can be helpful. And it’s certainly good for your relationships to have this level of trust and share in this kind of communication. The trouble is, the advice you receive is rarely unbiased.

Those closest to you usually have their own stake in your happiness or what you do in life. This means they may inadvertently push you towards what is best for them or help you take the easy way out – avoiding those sometimes uncomfortable steps towards achieving your goals.

A life coach has no stake in what you do. Their role is only to help you work towards what you want for your life. They have a professional approach and as such, are better positioned to help you validate your goals and improvements to your life objectively.

The benefits of working with a life coach will see you make faster, easier progress than struggling alone or relying solely on the support of those in your personal life.

Tell me, which of these four benefits resonate the most with you? Please share in the comments.