Friday, March 19, 2010

Elements of Life Coaching Courses

Life coaching is all about teaching one to attain one’s personal goals. All of us have a certain target in life, be it in the professional sphere or the personal sphere. In the course of your journey towards achieving that goal, you might lose the plot halfway and be at a complete loss. It is then that you need to re-align yourself and re-direct your energies towards achieving the goals that you had set out to achieve. Life coaching courses are thus designed in away that will offer you a perspective of the current scheme of things and will inspire you to achieve your goals.

Life coaching courses incorporate elements of psychology, counseling both personal and career oriented, sociology, mentoring and positive adult development. The courses, as they stand these days, have been traced to Benjamin Karter. A life coach introduces into his module value assessment, goal setting, mentoring, behavior modeling and behavior modification. A combination of all these elements are integral to devising a life coaching course.

These courses help an individual to:
  • Set his goals and prioritize them
  • Work to their strength and work on their weaknesses
  • Learning to be self sufficient and self motivating especially in crunch situations
  • Being aware of the important issues in life and have a deeper understanding of them
  • Alignment of plans and the activities
Life coaching courses have not yet being standardized by any regulatory body. Therefore life coaches have the liberty to adopt their preferred mode of coaching. Life coaching courses cover various aspects of life including:
  • Stress management and balance
  • Finances
  • Parenting and family issues
  • Spirituality and personal growth
  • Health issues
  • Relationships
  • Entrepreneurial initiatives
  • Time Management
  • Career planning
Life coaching courses are meant to help you to re-discover life and your lost passion. These sessions turn out to be immensely helpful for those who feel that their path to success is full of obstacles. A life coaching course will just stimulate the necessary self confidence and lost vigor that you need to script a success story out of your life.

Personal finance coaching: Know more about managing your personal finance and learn how you can get more out of small budget.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Leadership Training - Be a Follower First to be a Leader

Though some people still believe in the proverb “leaders are born and not made” with leadership skills training programs, it is possible to develop certain leadership qualities. Studies reveal that leaders behave in a certain manner. So you can learn from certain qualities and behavioral traits of a leader and incorporate them in your life. The bottom line is to become a good leader one needs to be a good follower first.

Here is a brief list of the areas one needs to improve in order to develop leadership skills.

Honesty: Leaders are respected for their honesty and ethics. Honesty is the key to earn trust and faith of others. This is one small step you can take in your life. Honesty is not just about speaking the truth, it also means taking responsibility for your own actions especially when the results are not favorable.

Courage: Leaders have the courage to take risk, to break the existing set up and give new directions to his followers in order to achieve a goal. Following the established rules without innovative thinking shows no drive or determination. To become a leader you need to have the courage of crossing barriers and exploring what is beyond. You can practice this by speaking up against what you think is wrong instead of just being a silent watcher.

Passion: Leaders have enthusiasm for doing something new. A leader has passion for his work. You can develop that passion for work by being enthusiastic about the tasks assigned to you.

Commitment: Commitment is a common trait of leaders. You can achieve this quality by practicing commitment to your work, to your team mates as well as family and friends in life. Commitment means hard work and discipline for achieving goals.

Focus: Leaders have strong focus for their goals and they strongly believe in what they can accomplish. By making a good plan and executing it thoroughly, you can build mental strength and focus in you.

Along with these qualities, a leader also has that charisma and ability to win people’s trust and respect. But it does not happen in one day. It takes a long time to develop leadership skills even though you may have the qualities. There are several areas in your personality that you need to work on in order to be a leader. That is what the Jean Houston Foundation in Leadership Training Oregon and Ashland are doing to give a new direction to young aspirants through various leadership training programs.

5. Goal Oriented

Leaders are very focused on the objectives that need to be achieved. They develop a plan and strategy to achieve the objectives. In addition, they will also work to build commitment from the team and rally them to achieve the organization’s goal. When developing leadership skills, start by looking at how goal oriented you are now. Improve upon that behavior.

6. Developing People

Developing people whether by training, coaching or teaching is one of the main traits of a good leader. No one can achieve organization goals alone. The team is needed in order to achieve them. Leaders develop people to build a stronger team so that the organization is effective. Start by developing your own knowledge when developing leadership skills.

7. Prioritize

Leaders do the most urgent and important things first regardless of their interest in them. For them, whatever needs to be done should be completed with the best possible effort. How do you compare with this trait? Do you complete tasks that you are uncomfortable with? Start developing leadership skills in this area by recognizing what are the important tasks to complete.

8. No Public Glory

Leaders understand that at best they will get personal credit for their work. Public glory is not expected. They know whatever achievements made were the results of joint efforts of their team. They share glory and credit with the rest for the work. They know they are only as good as their team. When developing leadership skills, ask yourself this – are you generous enough to share the accomplishments of your unit’s achievements?

Developing leadership skills is a long process. Some people are born with leadership skills. They develop into leaders much faster. Leadership is also your behavior as much as a skill. It is possible to learn leadership skills. Start now and when the opportunity arises, you will be ready.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Things to Implement in Your Everyday Life when You Enroll into Online Education


Who isn’t aware of the numerous benefits of online education? Well, along with offering a host of benefits, it demands something from you, something that is imperative for your learning. First of all, you have to have a very good understanding of how to maintain a balance between your work and your studies. Studying while doing a full-time job is not a piece of cake. If you don’t maintain a work-life balance, your effort can go down the pan.

Try to make most of the time that you get to spend at home. Explain everyone about the stringent work schedule that you have and the difficult course content that you need to complete without affecting your work schedule. If you get proper environment, you can churn out the best of benefits that your online education endows. If you have kids, teach them the day-to-day jobs that they can do. Divide some easy-to-do chores between them and of course, don’t forget to let your spouse know about it. Inform your spouse about the new responsibilities of yours and how important those are for you.

The place where you study should be allowed privacy for the time of your studies. You must make them understand in a well-orchestrated voice that you need to concentrate. Keep a particular place reserved for your studies. Remember that, when you are enrolled into online education, you are entirely on your own so you must take the helm to the way of your prosperity on your own.

A major aspect that you just cannot afford to deny is the networking opportunities. Become a part of online forums, discussion boards; write blogs, wikis and sign up for the different social networking sites. These will benefit you in the long run when you won’t be anymore a student of online education because networking goes way beyond the limits of education.