I was asked recently to write something explaining life skills and life coaching. The vast array of views and explanations by those in the field are fascinating to me. I did some research and synthesized everything I read and believe down to what follows. I welcome all questions and comments.
Life Skills are defined as ‘problem-solving behaviors appropriately and responsibly used in the management of personal affairs and the challenges of everyday life’. Appropriate use requires an individual to adapt the behaviors to time and place. Responsible use requires maturity and accountability.
The primary goal of a Life Skills program is to encourage participants to develop and use balanced self-determined behavior (BSD). BSD is defined as ‘behavior that results from a conscious choice that considers the situation, one’s own and other’s needs, as well as the potential consequences of that particular choice’ [in other words, Intentional]. BSD training and coaching increases a participant’s repertoire of choices, enhancing sense of self, increasing life satisfaction, and improving relationships with others.
Many organizations list the ten core life skill strategies and techniques as: problem solving, critical thinking, effective communication skills, decision-making, creative thinking, interpersonal relationship skills, self-awareness building skills, empathy, and coping with stress and emotions. Self-awareness, self-esteem and self-confidence are essential tools for understanding one’s strengths and weaknesses. Consequently, the individual is able to discern available opportunities and prepare to face possible threats. This leads to the development of a social awareness of the concerns of one’s family and society.
Subsequently, it is possible to identify problems that arise within both the family and society.
A Life Skills Coach/Trainer is a trained professional who is able to coach individuals, facilitate groups, model and evaluate skills and support individualized learning. Life Skills coaches/trainers have expertise in both content and process and are flexible in moving back and forth between the two. Life Skills coaches/trainers are also flexible in their choice of leadership (influencing and intervention) styles.
A distinction is made between training, coaching and facilitating.
Training is ‘conducting of an organized system of activities aimed at imparting information and/or instructions necessary to bring an individual or group of people to an agreed standard of proficiency’.
Coaching is the ‘art of facilitating the performance, learning and development of another which closes the gap between thinking about doing and doing thereby accelerating a person’s potential to maximize their own performance’ [in other words, to facilitate a ‘visible change in performance’].
To Facilitate literally means, ‘to make easy’. Facilitation is the process of making the forward movement of thought and action easy to accomplish. The facilitator is neutral to the subject and disengaged from the outcome. The facilitator ensures a process is followed to help those involved arrive at a conclusion–that could be an individual or group.
Group Facilitation is ‘keeping a meeting focused and moving, and to ensure even participation’. The most important job of a facilitator is to protect the process of those being facilitated. The process is how the group goes about accomplishing their task. The problem or content is what they’re working on. In studies comparing the working styles of high performance and low performance groups, the only significant, observable difference was the percentage of time the group members dedicated to the process they were involved in.
To Your Intentional Success!