Coaching Tip: The Client Calls the Tune

Originally Submitted on 9/26/2000.

Introduction

The well-known life balance wheel is intended to work on what the client wants for him or herself, not on some immutable set of one-size-fits-all criteria. As coaches, it is important to recognize always that each client needs to be coached toward that client's criteria for success, happiness, and a fulfilling life, even if these do not exactly match our own.

The Coaching Tip

In 21st century culture, work is becoming more and more ubiquitous throughout our twenty-four hour seven day a week lives. Electronic communications, and forward-looking employers who strive to make work environments more people-friendly, result in an invasion of people's lives by work to a far greater extent than most of us have known in the past. We are seeing a rapid crumbling of the boundaries between work and our non-work lives.

As coaches, many of us are inclined to push for the strengthening of these boundaries, and to urge clients to reserve time for their families and their own general well-being. Certainly, for the majority of clients, this is extremely important. However, it is well to remember that there is a difference between a client who is being swept up in the pervasiveness of the work environment without realizing it, or because s/he feels there is no choice, and one who consciously chooses to make work the central life focus, at least for a few years. The former may indeed need to strengthen the work/non-work boundaries, but for the latter this may not be the way to go.

The overall question for each individual is, does what I am doing contribute to what I want out of life? If we can help clients to keep their life goals always in mind, and to measure their activities in light of those goals, then we are serving them well even if the lifestyle chosen is not one we would choose for ourselves. If the lifestyle that is being lived is congruent with the client's life goals, then that is the client's choice.

Perhaps the majority of our clients do need to strengthen their work/non-work boundaries, but that does not mean that they all do. Every client is different, and for every client, there is a new and different approach to what creates a full and satisfying life. What works for one will not work for all.

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