Getting healthy is a much sought after ideal.  There are good messages all around us (be healthy, have a strong mind, build a strong body, create your very best life) that we hear on a regular basis (thank you, Oprah!).  We have access to an abundance of programs that provide steps and know how to change our lives for the better. 

The vast majority of these programs are sound and do work well for many people.  These programs introduce new ideas that may expand your possibilities and provide new tools.  For some people these tools may be life changing and open the doors to possibilities previously unattainable.  However, these programs don't work for everyone.  When the program doesn't succeed for some, the participant may begin to wonder why everyone else can succeed and they can't.  Sometimes an unsuccessful attempt may foster feelings of failure and inadequacy.  This may serve to create deeper dissatisfaction-- the very opposite of the desired outcome.

While I believe deeply in not attempting to reinvent the wheel, learning from others, and being as knowledgeable as possible on any one given subject-there's one piece missing in all these various good programs.  That piece is you.  You aren't like anyone else.  Sometimes a "template" solution may work for you-if it does, you're fortunate.  However, you come with your own unique set of needs, desires, and motivations.  Therefore your solutions to creating change in your life must include the most important factor of all-your solutions must include you.

When you are intimately involved in the creation of tailor-made systems designed to affect change, you have a much greater chance of success.  You are the expert on yourself and only you hold the answers to who you will be, what you will have in your life, and how you will achieve it.   This is at the core of why coaching works beautifully for many people.

Unlike therapy where a problem is diagnosed and recovery is sought, a coaching conversation deals with the present.  A coaching conversation is the creation of workable solutions that are generated by you.  At times you may discover layers of ideas and solutions you didn't realize you had in you.  This is one more factor that makes coaching so powerful.  Coaching may uncover depths of wisdom you were previously unaware you had in abundance. 

Coaching opens to the doors to your own best solutions.  When you create your own answers, the odds are with you that it will be a fit for your life and your personal situation.  I also believe that it teaches you one of the most valuable and lasting lessons we may ever gain as a person.  You may learn that you are able to save yourself, command your life, and make good, solid decisions.  Those beliefs are the cornerstone of most great successes. 

Coaching also provides a space where the interaction is completely about you.  With full lives and so many responsibilities to attend to each day, how much of your time is really about you?  Just about you and absolutely nothing else?  Having a space which is completely about you and whatever you wish to address can be powerful and deeply healthy.

As a coach when I am asked, why coaching, I am compelled to share that coaching has been one of the most rewarding endeavors in my life.  I have had the privilege to witness the infinite capacity of each and every client.  I see such expansive willingness to create joy, success, and a loving self-knowledge.  I have watched people do what they thought was beyond them.  I have seen them grow into a deep self-knowledge that allowed their fears to diminish, their life to expand, and their happiness explode.  To see all this positive life movement, when they thought they couldn't possibly do whatever it was, and this inspires me every day.  Why coaching indeed.