We are experiencing a fast-moving world where people from various backgrounds are becoming vulnerable to stress, which in turn can eventually lead to burnout.
We think we must grind out one more thing at work to make the day’s deadline, yet equally feel that we must attend to home life, and all the duties that we are responsible for.
It’s possible that this chronic high pressure causes burn-out syndrome, not only putting people at risk of various diseases, but also halting life altogether.
Through Therapeutic Life Coaching, people can learn the life tools and strategies to move forward and reduce stress, eliminate triggers and create a healthy work-life balance.
The Role of Therapeutic Life Coaching in Stress Management
Therapeutic Life Coaching therefore brings together both traditional therapy and the life-goals ‘action’ work of coaching to develop a unique ‘co-creative’ ‘co-owned’ ‘self-help’ plan to alleviate symptoms.
It is different from conventional practice in that it is a therapy that recognises that not everyone needs, wants or necessarily has to go down the expert route of psychotherapy.
Although some people seem to benefit more from talk therapy than action or future-focused goals, others prefer and react better to a physical action plan with set goals.
Not everyone wants to delve too deeply into the reasons for their mental and psychological struggles.
Life Coaches work with people on an individual basis, building trust and understanding. Using a therapeutic approach, and working with clients to understand the origin of their stress and helping them to develop a self-help plan to bridge the gap and work toward attaining better mental health.
When using a psychotherapeutic approach, life coaches sit with clients to piece together stress catalysts and triggers, working through emotions and reactions to move forward.
Life coaches focus on how to cope in the moment, how to manage life stress, and help to develop a plan of action on how to incorporate healthy changes into a client’s lifestyle.
Integrating Stress Management Strategies into Daily Life
Among the method’s most useful benefits is the pragmatism that it brings to the therapeutic process.
Coaches then help clients to integrate their strategies into their day-to-day activities, increasing the chances that they will experience the benefits of the stress-management programme in the long term.
That might mean taking time out for mindfulness training, finding an exercise programme you can sustain over the long term, or becoming better at scheduling or prioritising so that pressures of the day are not allowed to accumulate.
The Importance of Stress Management in Achieving Work-Life Balance
Finding a balance between your work life and your private life , and the management of changing working hours have become part and parcel of our modern living. As work lives and private lives often overlap, it is important for us to have tools to deal with stress and avoid the domination of private life by work, or work life by private life.
Therapeutic Life Coaching is designed to facilitate the client to establish the boundaries that enable him or her to commit to work, and to life outside of work, with confidence, knowing that they have maintained a state of self-care.
Exploring Stress Management Techniques and Their Effectiveness
Through therapeutic life coaching, a wide variety of stress-management skills can be learnt, any of which can be tailored to the demands of the particular client and their lifestyle.
Of course, these may include mindfulness meditation, time-management strategies, cognitive-behavioural strategies and physical activities, all different among clients or according to the clients’ preference.
The one proposed might also simply be less effective than the others, and here is where the life coach proves her value in terms of steering her client towards the ones that are going to work best for her preferences and lifestyle.
Comparing Traditional Therapy with Therapeutic Life Coaching for Stress Management
While there are some parallels between traditional psychotherapy and TLC, they are very different modalities.
In traditional therapy, a person in counselling is usually invited to look back in an attempt to discover past experiences that might be contributing to the stresses that are present so forcefully now – and to the roots of the ‘inability’ to conquer or solve them.
You might learn more about yourself, why you are stressed, why you might not be coping as well as you could be right now.
The TLC approach encourages those who want to move on, that’s why the model focuses on what can be done now, what can be done today – to move towards a better life tomorrow.
Since its focus is future-oriented, it is focused on action more than classic therapy which can often be delving into the past at the expense of establishing and achieving future objectives.
Comparing Traditional Therapy with Therapeutic Life Coaching for Stress Management
The basic mechanism of life coaching is to teach invaluable skills and attributes to handle stress and to attain a sense of balance in life by using a range of techniques.
For instance goal setting, in which a life coach helps you to set clear, obtainable objectives could be used to combat stress.
Another technique could be accountability measures, to keep you committed to the practice of stress management, helping you to achieve your desired goal.
Fostering you to practise cognitive restructuring is another popular technique in life coaching, helping you to make changes in your thinking habits that can often lead to obsess and stress about them.
All these techniques plus the support and encouragement by a life coach can stand as an effective course of treatment to reduce tremendous stress and possibly attain a balanced life.
Conclusion
Stress in modern life is unavoidable, but burnout and other physical and psychological distress secondary to it can be a choice.
Therapeutic Life Coaching is a viable and successful approach for stress mitigation and a balanced life.
When the ‘how to’ versus the ‘why’ approach of Coaching is combined with customised strategies, the stressor is manageable, mistakes are turned into learning opportunities, and steps towards a healthier life can be taken.
Used alone or in conjunction with therapy, a Therapeutic Life Coach can provide a sense of support and scalable instruments for a stress-free and balanced life.