Life Purpose and Legacy Coaching:
Pursuing your Purpose and Pathway to Prosperity

I wrote the following article nearly a decade ago, but it is still as relevant today and may help you decide on what, if any, type of support might help you to become the creative catalyst for change you were born to be:

Magic Wands and Broomsticks

If you had a magic wand, what one thing would you change in your world?  Interesting question hmm….?  As the Spice Girls sang, “Tell me what you want, what you really, really want”.  Really visualise your dream in technicolour detail, with all the sounds and smells associated with it. What are you feeling?  When do you want it?  Right now?

How could you go about making what you really, really want to be, do or have a reality whenever you want it?  What might empower, motivate and inspire you?  What might stop you from achieving your life’s dreams?

In these heady days of personal development, there’s a diverse and often confusing range of support offered which may help get you from where you are now to where you want to be more quickly and easily than by yourself.  So which is the right one to help you to turn your dreams into reality?  Therapy? Counselling? Consulting? Mentoring? Coaching?  Each of these have their merits at the right time and place and you may find below a useful guide to explain the five disciplines or 5Ds (although different perceptions/definitions exist), using driving a car as an example:

• A Therapist might work with people who could be considered damaged/ dysfunctional in some way, perhaps as a result of trauma or previous experience which is making functioning day-to-day very difficult.  They could, for example, help clients to explore their history in order to uncover what is stopping them from achieving something, such as driving a car.  If the experience is not traumatic but troublesome, an NLP Practitioner might work with a client to help them overcome e.g. mild phobias such as fear of driving alone.  NLP tools and techniques focus on how we think what we think so we can change how we feel and thus take action.

• A Counsellor might work with those experiencing significant levels of distress which might impact on their everyday lives and will listen to the client’s concerns and anxieties about driving the car. 

• A Consultant might work with individuals or groups to diagnose problems and recommend solutions to current challenges. They will give a client clear, logical guidance and advice on how best to drive a car.

• A Mentor may help those seeking direction from someone with knowledge and experience in the same area.  They are likely to share their own experience of driving cars and offer guidance and tips to help the client.

• A Coach works with clients around their desire to move forward in life and achieve their ambitions (i.e. are future-focused).  They will encourage and support clients as they drive the car so that the client becomes the best driver they want to be.  Coaching is not mentoring or counselling.

So therapists and counsellors might be considered to use ‘broomstick’ tools and techniques to help clients declutter and clean up what they’re carrying from the past and no longer serves them well, preparing them to move forward with a cleaner, brighter view of the future. 

Consultants and mentors may diagnose and/or fix problems for the client and give them a set of instructions or models to follow. 

Coaching however, empowers, motivates and inspires clients to wave your own magic wands to achieve your goals. It is a structured conversation between the Coach and the Client, where the coach asks the Client questions to find out your challenges and empower you to use broomsticks to sweep away unhelpful or limiting beliefs and behaviours, create your own solutions, make your own decisions, motivate and inspire you to take responsibility for those decisions and be accountable for taking the actions necessary to reach your goals and aspirations.

Spiritual people who believe in guardian angels and guides, may have differing views on the roles of their spiritual helpers.  If you believe that you are spirit encased in a physical human form and have incarnated in this lifetime to learn lessons and develop spiritually, how might your spiritual helpers and loved ones assume the roles of the 5Ds?  Our guides walk alongside us on our paths, may point us in the direction of opportunities to learn, or answers we seek, through our dreams, synchronicities and messages through mediums, but like coaches they inspire us to use our own broomsticks to clear away challenges and wave our own magic wands to identify and create the changes we desire.

Are you ready to start owning your stage, Pursue your Life Purpose and Pathway to Prosperity?