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cbavasi
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Post by cbavasi » Wed, 03 Jun 2009 1:08 pm

I have a friend who recently did some programs involving a life coach and now I find every time I see her she asks "How is everything... I mean really... HOW IS EVERYTHING..." I'm always sort of looking over my shoulder like "are you talking to me?"
I think it is great if people want to better their life and it motivates them and such... but it doesn't mean that everyone needs the same sort of program.

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QRM
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Post by QRM » Wed, 03 Jun 2009 1:39 pm

Call me a bit old fashioned but what is this new phrase "life coach" that keep being banded about? is it a fancy new word for a shrink? a new title for unqualified shrinks?, ie anyone can be a life coach, bit like architects and architectural designers, anyone can be an AD, but you need qulifications to be an Architect?

Is it for people with a bit too much time on their hands? and involves crystals and magnets like a midway point between Happy clappers, and New age gurus? Some poor family working 24 hours a day scraping a living has much call for life coaching?

I thought thats the whole fun part of life there is no need for a coach, and if you don't know where your life is heading and have no direction, then even better, it means you can take any path as it will all eventually lead to somewhere.
Last edited by QRM on Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Alice188
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Post by Alice188 » Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:39 pm

You choice - how to live your life...if you think life coach is someone who has nothing better to do but try to dig someone past or pain point to work on, then please do some research on life coaching...or you know some coaches are like this? I don't know all, but I just know I am very busy with my own life, and why I still put myself as a coach? Because I care.

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Post by QRM » Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:13 am

Alice188 wrote:You choice - how to live your life...if you think life coach is someone who has nothing better to do but try to dig someone past or pain point to work on, then please do some research on life coaching...or you know some coaches are like this? I don't know all, but I just know I am very busy with my own life, and why I still put myself as a coach? Because I care.
Oh I see, thats nice of you to care and offer your service for free, alot of these types just do it for money. No no its not the life coach has nothing better to do, in fact they have a pretty good plan to start with, I am wondering if the sort of people who go for life coaching, do they have nothing better to do. I didn't realise it was so broad, cooking lesson is a form of life coaching?

I notice there are six self-appointed accreditation bodies for life coaching: the International Coaching Council (ICC), the International Coach Federation (ICF), the International Association of Coaching (IAC), the Certified Coaches Federation (CCF), the European Coaching Institute (ECI) and the International Guild of Coaches (IGC).

Do you think there should be a global and Independent supervisory board to sort the scammer out? In your experience which of the accreditation bodies carry the most weight?

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taxico
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Post by taxico » Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:17 pm

Alice188 wrote:I don't know all, but I just know I am very busy with my own life, and why I still put myself as a coach? Because I care.
is that why you tell me that i "need a life"?

is that really the most effective and sensitive way of telling me to do whatever it is you think i should do?

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sundaymorningstaple
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Post by sundaymorningstaple » Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:54 pm

Methinks, our friend Alice, might be thinking about now, "I might have bitten off more'n I can easily chew! :wink:
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

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Post by irvine » Thu, 04 Jun 2009 2:36 pm

Ok, why does a person need a life coach?

Hasn't our parents/guardians prepared us to go through life? Does that mean, we need someone to be a coach so we could feel happy?

Just throwing out a question... I don't need a human life coach. My life coach is my God. I may have mentors in my career, but that's just it, mentor-mentee relationship.

Alice, you're busy, and you still want to be a life coach bcoz you care... do you mean so that you could earn money out of feeling caring for a person? If it's not the money, why not just volunteer as a counselor or coach for youth in some non-profit organizations? What's the main difference of a life coach and a counselor. Enlighten me.

Also, you mentioned
If you have any query in your daily life, and would like to look for a friend to share, AND you are keen to share with a new friend like me, I am here for you
Hmm... but you're neither my best friend, or my counselor. Do I sign a liability waiver when I ask you a personal query?

I am curious to know what motivates you to be a life coach apart from bcoz you care.

Disclaimer: I am not to make your life difficult here trying to answer my questions. I am merely interested to know what motivates life coaches.

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Post by Alice188 » Sat, 06 Jun 2009 1:23 am

I am so glad to receive so many comments from you guys and in fact this open up my mind on how people react when come to this 'coaching' terms. There are many ways to improve our lives and coaching is just part of it. We could learn through mentoring, reading self help books, talking to friends, religions...all these would help depends on individual. Life coaching is part of the options if you are willing to try this on. However, if other methods suit you better of course you should follow that path! As for me, I read, I talk to different people, and now taking up coaching program. Different options give me different perspective and I grow from each of them.
I believe my invitation in this discussion is mainly because I want to share from what I learn. There are many people out there dare to speak out their mind and work on their life which is really good, however there are also many people wish someone could lend them listening ears because they couldn't find anyone to share. I am here for those people, as long they arewilling to open up, I am willing to listen and see how could I stand for them. For those who wish to share what they have learnt in their lives, I am far more than happy to exchange our views.
Why I am doing this? Of course it's not because I am too free and nothing else better to do! LOL. To share a little bit about myself, I am a sales manager during the day and a part time tutor at night and weekends. On top of that, I am also a coach in training and undergoing a training program now. I am really busy with my own life.
So why am I still doing this? In the past, I met many people and they have created great impact in my life, be it good or bad. While meeting some really bad people who break my heart, I meet many good people who always want me to live a good life. I appreciate that. I promise myself before, if someone could make my life better, why can't I do for other people too? Be it I know as friends or strangers.
Thus my full time work provides me steady income and I really love my job, while giving tuition besides the side income, I could use this tools to educate our next generation and even there is only one student to be a good person who spread kindness and love to another person, ball will start to roll from there. Thus, my teaching is not about teaching just from the books, but more on what values do I really want to bring into them.
Why coaching? Coz I personally feel that advising sometimes might not be the best way to deal with someone's issue because the person might not feel being empowered if I just tell them what to do (even I may know the answer). More importantly is how could I chat with them so that they could find out what truly matters them and they want to make the change to improve their lives, isn't more meaningful?
If you talking about charity work, well I am doing that too. Currently I have a sponsored kid in Ethopia, to make sure I could bring in values, I draw pictures to my kids (coz she is only 5 years old) to let her feel that I could connect with her even there is no wordings in our letter. I want her to know that beside monetary assistance that I can provide, I love her even she doesn't know who am I. Who has set the rule that I could only love someone who is very close to me? Who tells me that I couldn't love a stranger and put a smile on them?
On top of that, I have given a motivational workshop to an orphanage home as my charity work few months back. I am currently working with my friends to see how could we bring this workshop to more homes. The message that I want to deliver is that no one has a choice to choose their parents, but they definitely have choice to choose their life! But first of all they will be nothing if they think they are no one and lack of self confidence!
I don't need to be your best friend to share your story coz I have proved it tonite. I met this sweet girl in a pub and we exchange msn and we chatted today, she was very moody today but opened up and shared a lot with me. I just chat with her. I have another person who chatted with me tonite too, I just met her once and she was asking around just to get my contacts so that we can keep in touch. See! I have met so many who helped me in the best, if I can do my part for other people too, should I care if I know them well in the first place? They are all my friends just by chatting through msn!
As long someone is serious about his/her life and want to make a change, I am here for him/her!
p/s: Besides doing so many stuff, I also make sure that I have time for myself doing things that I like! Going out with friends, clubbing, reading books, watching movies, listening to songs. I do enjoy my life :lol:

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sundaymorningstaple
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Post by sundaymorningstaple » Sat, 06 Jun 2009 7:14 am

Alice. Nice reply. Good luck with your life and with your "coaching".

It's not for me but I am sure there are those out there that will fall for it and spend their money looking at the money spent here on conferences of this nature and other self-help seminars (that rarely seem to produce better rounded individuals here).
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

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Post by irvine » Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:58 am

This is amusing to me.

What Alice has described sounds like a natural thing when new friends meet, and if they become good friends they talk more... and over time they could tell each other their joys, sorrows, etc. Great. Everyone makes new friends from time to time... great.

So, what amuses me really, is that... making friends seems to be commercialised now? Is this what you're doing, Alice? Commercialising friendship?

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Post by Alice188 » Sun, 07 Jun 2009 1:18 am

Commercialising friendship? What the funny terms is that? I don't like to complicate things, I like simple thing. I just know that it's not that difficult for me to meet friends coz I am sincere. I don't have any agenda or intention behind. I am sure those who like to keep in touch with me because they feel me I am sincere. I am not sure for the rest, but all my friends that I currently have all started from strangers stage, so we transform from strangers to friendship :)

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Post by TommyD » Sun, 07 Jun 2009 11:20 am

I'm curious about the idea of life coaching, i can see some merits in the idea, especially for expats in a new country with few friends and lots of questions.

However, i've always understood the idea of "coaching" as some with significant experience, knowledge and skill in a subject teaching/training someone else in the subject. Such as football coaches that are often past players that have succeeded greatly in their actual playing careers and are now passing their knowledge. Your post above is very well written, but really doesn't show a whole lot of life experience, such as marriage/divorce, raising children, stressful work environment etc (the things that people with life problems will likely need coaching on). i'm certainly not going to judge you and say that you don't have the experience, but perhaps you should share your experiences so people feel more comfortable sharing theirs.

On a side note, i commend you for replying to all the threads above without giving people the arguements they are so desperately looking for. One area i'm sure you could coach on is the ability to remain calm and professional under fire!

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sundaymorningstaple
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Post by sundaymorningstaple » Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:34 pm

TommyD wrote:Your post above is very well written, but really doesn't show a whole lot of life experience, such as marriage/divorce, raising children, stressful work environment etc (the things that people with life problems will likely need coaching on). i'm certainly not going to judge you and say that you don't have the experience, but perhaps you should share your experiences so people feel more comfortable sharing theirs.
Nice post TommyD, and the only thing that I would take exception to is the reference to having been through the experience in order to pass it down/to others. The following article I wrote quite some time ago, (around 12 years ago) and it was published in one of the local newspaper and given an entire page.

HOW TO SURVIVE THE TEEN YEARS

An Open Letter to your Kids (somehow the original post resurfaced)
Primarily, I am referring to my point 7:

7. Experience isn’t necessarily the best teacher – unless you’re going to throw the experiences of others into the equation. You don’t have to stick your hand in the fire to know that it’s hot. And you don’t have to experiment with drugs or premarital sex or anything else to know they’re dangerous. Others have already proven that. Trust them.
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

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Post by Alice188 » Mon, 15 Jun 2009 1:44 am

Hey, sorry for my late reply. It's a bit crazy for my time past few days. Thanks for your comment. I'll take note.
As for life experience wise, I agree with both of you. I don't mind to share about my life but I may have too much to share.
To cut the long story short, I used to live under my mum's shadow. As she suffered a lot in my family, I did a lot of things to meet her expectation to compensate what she has suffered. Thus, I didn't really have my own life. What really hurt me most was my ex, we had been together for 5 years and broke up 2 years ago. In that 5 years, not only I put in effort but also assist him financially. And because of that I put myself in big problem as I had a huge financial debts. Since then, I hated myself and never live in peace with myself. I punished myself and didn't allow me to be happy. The funny part was that I still put on a smiley face even I knew I wasn't happy.
Of course there were other incidents happened in my life too but too much to share. I always ask mysef, why should I be living in such situation? What is happiness to me? Why it's so unfair to me? I tried to read from books, talked to friends, of course they helped me but it's only temporary. That's why I chose to take up the coaching programme coz I seemed like I have lost my way in life. I found out why and this journey has also helped me to see what I want to do in my life. I will not be who I am today without help from a lot of people around me. Thus, I want to do the same to other people, to help people to see possibilities in lives coz it's all about what we really want in our lives. Just that I extend this intention to those I don't know that's why I come to this forum.

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