It's time to get a life - with a life coach

By VAL LEVESON

Maree Bathurst is successful, intelligent and hard-working. But soon after starting her job as principal at Albany Primary School she began feeling overwhelmed - having to balance a demanding job that meant 60-hour weeks with family and other commitments.

"It's not that I'm not capable of time-management," she said, as she produced her Stephen R. Covey-inspired filofax.

She needed something else, something to help to balance her life.

It was then that she received an email from the Auckland Principals' Association offering four free sessions with a life coach.

Bathurst knew something had to change in her life, although she felt sceptical about life coaching.

When she phoned coach Margaret Wyn, one of her first questions was, "I have always set my own goals - I have a masters degree and am a reasonably successful person. Why do I need someone to tell me what to do?"

The answer? "For some reason you are not where you want to be at the moment. With all your ability, you're not getting there by yourself."

Wyn assured her that four sessions may be all she needed.

"It's not a long-term thing," she said. "But it's empowering. You will learn how to listen to yourself."

One of the exercises Wyn gave Bathurst was to take five minutes a day of no contact with anyone, a bit of time out. Even this small step has done wonders, says Bathurst.

"Often women are not good at taking time for themselves," she says. "I have to accept that I have the right to take a lunch break. I have to give myself permission to have time to myself."

The main thing Wyn taught her was to trust and listen to her inner self.

"I needed to do some refocusing and to realise that I can't serve others all the time. I'm entitled to a life, too."

Wyn started her career as a school teacher, then became a human resources manager and trainer for 10 years before starting a human resources business. She has a BA degree and post-graduate diploma in business.

She calls herself a business coach. She does corporate coaching, where a business may contact her to help a particular executive or to look at the operation and work within it.

She also helps clients one-on-one through her company Accent on Success and teaches coaching skills through her New Zealand School of Coaching.

She emphasises that coaching is different from therapy and counselling. It's not about going back to childhood trauma or sorting out serious psychological problems.

Coaching is for people who want to find a new direction in their lives, for people who feel stuck.

Wyn says if she finds a client has psychological problems, she refers them to a medical person.

"Coaching is individual," she says. "We don't advise and we don't give direction. It's about empowering conversations and helping a person to find out what they want to do. You can go to a book and get advice.

"Coaching is about harnessing the potential within an individual, helping to put new strategies into place, looking into what is specifically not working in their lives and seeing what can be done about it."

So, how does a person become a coach? It seems anyone can set themselves up, as the field is not regulated. It is also trendy at present, and extremely lucrative - coaches can charge between $80 and $350 a hour.

Counsellor for stress-related disorders John McEwan says it's a case of buyer-beware. "There are good people in the field. I know some of them because they're my clients.

"They're people who have gone through the self-discovery process themselves and are able to help others.

"But because it's so trendy at the moment you have to be careful about who you go to.

"Coaching is a fad that's come out of America. It's the next step after the self-help book. There are a lot of fly-by-night people getting into it and there are a lot of decent people."

His advice is to be cautious. Check CVs and track records of honesty, integrity and life experience.

Wyn says a coach should be a member of the International Coach Federation - but membership can be gained simply by paying the fee.

The federation does have coaching courses, and it would be good to check that a prospective coach has some training.

Irene Streten went to Wyn first as a client and then decided to pursue coaching as a career choice and attended her training course.

"I decided to go for coaching because I felt life was running me rather than the other way around," says Streten.

"I didn't know what my problem was. There didn't seem to be a reason for me to feel discontent. Coaching gave me clarity about what I wanted in my life.

"I've spent time studying counselling and am a qualified teacher. It's not that I dislike teaching, I just wanted something else. Margaret has helped me to find that.

"It's been about moving on, to acknowledge the past but to take the question 'why' out of my vocabulary. There are more powerful questions and ways that are more productive."

She says Wyn's coaching course has helped her to develop good listening skills.

"You learn to listen but not always buy into what's said. You learn to hear what the person is saying through choice of words and the way it is being said. You learn the skill of asking questions."

Wyn says life experience is important. "You need to be able to relate to your clients, and this is often not easy for someone who is too young."

She says high EQ (emotional intelligence) and being prepared to learn a lot about yourself is important, too.

Wyn agrees that there needs to be some regulation of who goes into the field and advises people to choose a coach carefully.

On the web: International Coach Federation