A Coach for Your Life
Lisa Krachey
Life coach
helps clients achieve their goals
By Ted Pennekamp
Most people associate the word “coach” with someone who helps athletes to reach their goals and their full potential.
So, why not have a coach for one’s life, or at least certain aspects of one’s life, in order to fulfill one’s goals, ambitions and full potential?
A Wauzeka woman, Lisa Krachey, does just that. Lisa is a certified life coach, having graduated in May after taking online courses from Liberty University of Virginia with a degree in psychology and an emphasis in life coaching.
“Life coaching is a profession that is profoundly different from counseling, mentoring, therapy or consulting,” said Lisa. “In the coaching process, it is addressing specific personal obstacles or challenges that are holding the client from reaching the life they want. A coach is there for the client to form a support system and teach the client to develop an action plan to set either professional or personal goals by giving them the tools to achieve success.”
Lisa said that she and the client develop a “life wheel” and the client rates the various aspects or his or her life and what aspects they would like to improve upon. They then develop an action plan in order to improve in those areas and meet realistic goals.
“In life coaching, we don’t focus on the past,” Lisa said. “We work towards a successful future.”
She noted there are various forms of life coaching including Christian coaching, executive coaching, marriage and relationship coaching, and health and wellness coaching.
Lisa said one aspect of executive coaching is to help executives to form a better relationship with employees in order to improve happiness in the work place as well as production.
A main aspect of professional coaching is to help a person to get a good job and advance in one’s career.
Marriage coaching can involve people who have been married for a long time or those about to be married. Pre-marital coaching, in some cases, may be a way to help the prospective bride and groom see the practical realities of what daily life will be like after they are married. It can also make the man and woman think about and express such things as how they view their upcoming marriage roles and how they view their parents’ marriages and how their parents’ marriages have affected their own marriage expectations, said Lisa. She also noted that men who relate to sports oftentimes are more apt to go a life coach rather than a counselor.
Christian coaching focuses upon one’s spiritual aspect, getting God back into your life and attaining spiritual goals, Lisa said.
Lisa, 44, has worked at the Prairie du Chien Correctional Institution for nearly 20 years, and this experience, she says, has given her some insight that will serve her well when called upon to coach young adults as they get ready to enter the “real” world. Coaching troubled young adults is also one of Lisa’s interests. “Don’t let the past define you,” she says.
Whatever area of life a person is working on, Lisa said life coaches are personal cheerleaders and they give their clients the tools and training to make their situation more successful. As with any coach, everything isn’t always warm and fuzzy, however. Lisa said the client will make all of the decisions as to what their goals are, but the coach will ask the difficult questions and hold their client accountable.
“The life coach is the person who holds the client accountable if they aren’t fulfilling their action plan and the short-term goals agreed upon during the sessions,” said Lisa. “The coach is the person who asks the defining questions that makes the client be realistic with themselves and evaluate what is really holding them back from achieving their goals. The coach is not there to tell the client what to do. They are there to provide advice, guidance and training to the client, but the decisions are totally up to the client.”
To contact Lisa for an appointment or to find more information, interested persons can call (608) 412-4986. For more information, Lisa has also placed pamphlets at various locations, including American Family Insurance, Deb’s Hair and Nails, the Healing Arts Center, and the Crawford County Courthouse Building.
