Life Coaching in all its variations is a process that aims at helping you achieve what you wish for in life. This process may focus on your occupation and finances. Or it may focus on your relationship, your health and fitness, or your personal growth and development. In my experience, however, when people consider engaging a life coach, what they ultimately want is coaching toward a meaningful life, toward finding and pursuing their life purpose; they want Meaningful Life Coaching.
To arrange your first session of Meaningful Life Coaching, contact me today!
Meaningful Life Coaching = Existential Life Coaching
What makes Meaningful Life Coaching different than many other variations of life coaching, is that it looks deeper into the aspects of life that you wish to improve upon. Meaningful Life Coaching sees all your endeavours from a bigger perspective, to make sure that what you achieve in your life adds to your sense of life purpose and meaning.
Meaningful Life Coaching keeps in clear view the existential ground that forms the often overlooked backdrop to everything that we fill our lives with. It therefore also takes into account the “big questions” of life; such as, “does my life have a meaning?“, “what is my life purpose?“, “how can I make my life count?” This is why Meaningful Life Coaching is sometimes also referred to as Existential Life Coaching.
Life is precious
Just as with all other variations of life coaching, Meaningful Life Coaching can help you improve pretty much any aspect of your life. The difference is that, when we investigate what aspects of life you want to be more successful in, the investigation is grounded in existential awareness of the preciousness of life – you simply don’t know how long it will last. Meaningful Life Coaching makes sure that what you put energy into improving/enhancing is really and truly what you want to put your energy into.
To maintain (or repeatedly reawaken) your existential awareness, Meaningful Life Coaching may intermittently bring back the “bigger perspective” of life e.g. by posing a question like, “If you really got that you could be dead before next Christmas, what aspect of your life would be the most important for you to attend to, now, before it’s too late?“
At first glance, it may seem morbid to bring the thought of your own death into your work toward making your life more meaningful. But when you ponder further on it, it is obvious that when you look at your life choices from this perspective, you are so much more likely to choose that which really means something to you! If your choices do not really mean something to you, they will not either be in alignment with your life purpose.
To live a meaningful life is essential for your wellbeing. And having a sense of purpose in your life makes life meaningful. You can read more about that in this blog post: The Six Essential Ingredients That Make Work Meaningful.
Your Life Purpose
Technologically, the human race has developed in leaps and bounds over the last century. Yet, at the same time, when it comes to matters of life purpose and meaning, we are lagging behind severely. We seem to be further away than ever from answers to the big, existential questions, and a widespread sense of meaninglessness and a deep lack of life purpose permeates our world.
To live without a sense of purpose means, not only to live without awareness of your own individual life purpose, but also without an understanding of there being a purpose to the world, or to life itself. This often leads to feelings of depression and meaninglessness, and thoughts like, “ it doesn’t matter what I do – nothing matters – I don’t matter.”
Philosophically, it may be reasonable to ponder whether life ultimately has a purpose. But on a practical level it stands quite clear; people who feel that they have a life purpose also experience life as more meaningful.
Your mission
Consider this possibility; that we all have a purpose, that we all, in a sense, are here on a mission. This mission may very well, on a higher level, be the same for each one of us, but, since we are different as individuals, we all have our own individual expression of that mission. Your individual expression of that mission is then what is called Your Life Purpose.
Your Life Purpose is your calling; it is the role that you are called to play in life. Your Life Purpose is what Plato described as the ‘blueprint’ of your soul, your true design.
It is as if you are an instrument, designed to play that particular note, which resonates with the tuning fork of your heart. So, Your Life Purpose is that which makes your heart sing! Still, your Life Purpose is not so much something that you do, as it is something that you are. As has been said many times before; we are human beings, not human doings. And so, Your Life Purpose is integrated into the core of your being, as what you really and truly are.
Meaningful Life Coaching helps you identify Your Life Purpose, and helps you live your life in alignment with this purpose. Meaningful Life Coaching can give you the motivation to reach for what you may otherwise never even dare to dream of.
Looking back at your life
Consider this scenario: You have come to the final days of your life, and you find yourself quietly reflecting on the life you have lived. You think about how you have lived; what you have filled your life with, how you have interacted with others, what you have achieved, and perhaps also about what you have tried to achieve but not quite managed.
In that moment, if you are really honest with yourself, will you be able to think to yourself, “this was a life well lived, I have no regrets,” and be at peace with yourself and the world around you? And today, now, are you on track to that peace, or are you still putting it off to later, in the belief that you are guaranteed to live long enough to start on the really important projects some time in the future?
No regrets
Did you know that when people are coming close to dying, they rarely (if ever) have regrets about anything at all that they have actually done. What people typically regret is that which they didn’t ever get around to doing!
By putting this kind of “bigger picture” perspective on how you go about living your life, Meaningful Life Coaching can help you become clear about what you really and truly want to do, while you still have the chance. And with that as a starting point, Meaningful Life Coaching can help you identify the road blocks that may be in your way, and help you work out how to get past them, so that you can reach the happiness and joy that you truly wish for.
Mindfulness
Life coaching is typically a service that you seek when you have goals, dreams and ambitions that you wish some assistance with reaching. Generally, this implies that you believe that once you reach your objectives, you will be able to enjoy their fruits. Well, as it turns out, this is not always the case.
Over the years I have had a great number of clients, who in their first session have told me about how they have achieved all they once upon a time set out to achieve; the career, the family, the riches, the early retirement… And at around that point in the story, they begin sobbing, because in spite of all this they are unhappy and don’t know what to do about it.
What they neglected to do along the way on their life journey was to develop their ability to appreciate and enjoy what they have got – not only be looking forward to what they will get!
Meaningful life coaching is also mindful life coaching. It incorporates mindfulness practices, to make sure that you are awake and present to all your experiences, that you are aware in each moment of your life. Mindfulness practices help you fully experience the ‘flavour’ of each experience, rather than being lost in thoughts, conceptualisations, opinions and judgements about your experiences. And experiencing the full ‘flavour’ of each moment makes all of life’s experiences richer, and makes it possible to truly enjoy the present, not only look forward to a future that may or may not ever come.
Don’t put it off any longer, don’t delay, contact me today!