Who is in the driver's seat of your life? Have you let your work, routine or fear take over your life? Do you feel that you’ve lost control over the course of your life?

Let’s face it; if you are not entirely in charge of your life, you’ll find it hard to experience personal growth, advance your career or even start your dream business. That’s why you need to do some soul-searching, look honestly inwards, and find the inner strength to take your life to the next level. It’s only this way that you can live the life you have always wanted.

But sometimes, you just cannot do it alone, or it simply takes too much time. For one, life’s ups and downs can take a toll on you, and you might end giving up. That’s where a life coach comes in handy. This is a trained professional whose job is to help you become a “better you.” From making a career change to losing weight to handling loss and everything in between, a life coach has what it takes to help you transform your life and face what life throws at you with your chin up.

Do you want to become the captain of your life -- to take full charge of all facets of your life? If yes, a life coach can help. In this article, I will present to you several reasons why working with a life coach is perhaps the best decision you will ever make.

So what is a Life Coach?

To get a better feel for what life coach entails, I’ll touch a little on coach definition. According to Cambridge Dictionary, a coach is “someone whose job is to teach people to improve at a sport, skill, or school subject.” This is essentially someone who encourages, props up, and provides guidance to people, who are mostly athletes. Improve is the most important takeaway here.

The same can be said of a life coach. Borrowing a leaf from the definition of a coach, a life coach is a specialist who provides guidance and support in all aspect of a person’s life. It is a trained coach who helps people set professional and personal growth goals so they can move forward in their lives. As a life coach, I can help you with several facets of your life, including health, career, relationships, and business, just to name a few.

Of course, no two life coaches are the same. Some are trained in general life coaching, while others specialize in specific areas. Which begs the question: what makes a great life coach?

10 Traits of An Effective Life Coach

1. A Great Life Coach is a Good Listener

As a life coach, I talk, interact, and brainstorm with people for the most part of the day. As such, I find that active listening helps me learn more about my clients and what is going on in their lives. The last thing I want to do is come up with solutions or comment right in the middle of when the client is speaking.

No matter how you look at it, excellent listening skills are a must-have for every forward-thinking life coach who has the interests of the client at heart. A good listener is not someone who nods and pretends to be listening; it is someone who takes the time to focus on what the other person is saying genuinely. This way, the life coach can read in-between words and figure out what the client is not actually saying.

The truth is that active listening is a skill that is hard to attain. It takes lots of concentration, energy, and focus. That is why most life coaches who are active listeners only see a few clients each day.

That being said, many times I will pause clients if they go on a tangent, in order to help them focus, and move forward from describing the problem to creating a solution.

2. A Great Life Coach is Respectful of the Client