The benefits of coaching span far beyond what most people initially envision when they find themselves Googling “career coach near me” late at night after a frustrating day at work.

Our clients typically come to us with a specific and fairly surface-level goal in mind, like hitting their career goals or finally feeling aligned in both their personal and professional life. But what inevitably happens is that a great coaching program helps you not just accomplish what you want but also address the things you need in order to thrive in both your personal and professional development.

This might be building your confidence, getting clarity about your career path or overcoming analysis paralysis. They are all enablers of goal achievement that coaching quickly dials in on to help you get where you want to go.

The Real Benefits of Coaching (That Might Surprise You)

76% of our clients have never worked with a coach before when they reach out to us. They have a vague idea of what a coaching relationship can do for them, but they’re not entirely sure.

Before we dive into specific types of coaching, let’s pull back the curtain on what coaching actually looks like. Whether it’s career, life, or leadership coaching, the coaching process creates a powerful container for personal and professional growth, career development, and good old-fashioned self reflection.

It’s not about getting advice—it’s about having the space to think clearly, challenge yourself, and grow in ways you didn’t expect.

A Safe Space with Zero Judgment (and 100% Truth Bombs)

While many of us are lucky to have wonderful support systems around us of friends and family, each of these people has a distinct perspective on our lives which is shaped by their relationship with us. Coaches, however, have no such bias. Coaches are there solely to help us achieve success and personal growth on our own terms.

In a professional environment, we often can’t explore ideas with colleagues and bosses due to the impact it may have on them, and we may not feel comfortable opening up about our insecurities. Having a safe space in a coaching session to explore these ideas, test new behaviors and evaluate different decisions is an invaluable resource.

A client shared with me, “As a leader I love that I have a safe space to say what is on my mind and either get validation or feedback to think through.”

Coaching is often the only space where employees develop the confidence to talk through the hard stuff—no office politics, just honest insight. This helps empower individuals to find to their own answers (not just take advice) and boosts individual performance, which is one of the most unexpected benefits of coaching.

Accountability That Doesn’t Feel Like a Shame Spiral

Many of our clients have shared that they initially felt embarrassed that they needed their coach to keep them accountable. They would say things like, “Shouldn’t I just be able to do that on my own?”

No!

External accountability is critical for most people to accomplish what they set out to do. This is especially true in today’s busy world with many competing demands for our attention. Throughout your youth, external accountability was abundant: school deadlines, parents holding us accountable, guidance counselors reminding us of due dates.

But in adulthood, we are largely on our own to set deadlines and accomplish our goals. Having a coach support you with this is a smart strategy to ensure you stay on task. The focus with your coach isn’t pressure, it’s progress, with actionable steps tailored to help you move forward confidently.

But it’s also so much more than just project management. It’s about doing the right things, not just checking a box.

When we are moving a million miles an hour, we often measure our contributions in terms of how many things we crossed off the to-do list. But moving from one task to the next without taking time to reflect can actually cause you to miss opportunities to learn, derive insights and make better decisions in the future. Dedicated time for reflection helps you better plan for the future.

Coaching creates a space in your day where you can slow down and be both reflective and intentional. It can break down a behavioral pattern you’ve sunk into and allow you to purposefully design a more optimal behavior.

Instead of just moving along to the next thing and potentially repeating the same mistakes, dedicating this time to reflection with a skilled professional can help you generate frameworks and philosophies that lead to better decisions going forward.

Better Problem Solving (Without the Mental Ping-Pong)

So much of life’s angst comes from stressing about what might happen. Whether it’s making a big life decision or figuring out how to tackle a problem at work, a prolonged mental swirl can bring about a lot of unnecessary anxiety.

These decisions are tough to make, and there is always fear about making the wrong choice. Coaching combats this challenge head on. It brings clarity to overthinkers, helping to structure decision-making, and boosting creative thinking, especially in high-stakes situations.

I tend to be an overthinker and a ruminator. I often enter my coaching sessions with a cacophony of thoughts swirling around my brain that are exhausting me. This causes me to not show up as my best self for my team. Coaching helps me make sense of the noise, organize my thinking, and make decisions with more self-confidence and clarity.

I often say that my favorite coaching sessions are the ones where nothing has changed and yet everything has changed. I didn’t actually do the thing I’ve been swirling about during my coaching session. But I walked in completely overwhelmed and stressed, and I walked out with clarity and a confident path forward. It truly makes all the difference when it comes to time management, problem solving and decision making.

Shine a Flashlight for Your Blindspots

You don’t know what you don’t know—until a coach helps you spot it. So often we come into coaching with a specific goal in mind and a set of beliefs we are holding about what will enable us to achieve that goal.

Through the process of coaching, we uncover new insights about our internal patterns, automatic assumptions, and limiting beliefs that were running the show behind the scenes. With this newfound self-awareness, we can begin to challenge old ways of thinking and start to overcome personal obstacles that have been holding us back. This is one of the benefits of coaching that most people don’t anticipate.

For example, a client may come to us saying that their boss doesn’t like them. And that is the reason they haven’t gotten the promotion they are seeking. Through coaching, we might uncover that this was purely based on assumption. Maybe that fear of trust is what’s holding that person back from building a stronger relationship with their boss and better advocating for their performance.

It’s important to note that your coach’s ability to help surface blindspots sharpens over time as the coaching relationship matures. As your coach picks up on your patterns and habits, they can lovingly reflect these back to you. Your relationship is built on a foundation of trust and honesty.

Now that we’ve unpacked what makes coaching so powerful in general, let’s explore what it looks like in three key areas: career, leadership, and life.

Career Coaching Is More Than A Resume Makeover

Career transitions are natural entry points into coaching. Whether it’s facing the job search or lacking clarity about what’s next, these pivots often lead to the realization that expert support is necessary.

But career coaching is so much more than helping you optimize your resume. It’s about helping you define and achieve your own vision of career success so you can go after it in a proactive way, versus allowing your career to happen to you. Taking control of their career paths is one of the top benefits of coaching that our clients report back.

Career coaching helps clients not only get unstuck professionally but also grow in confidence and direction. You may think you just need a few interviewing tips but may realize you’ve been underselling your experience and downplaying your capabilities. The skills developed and the confidence built throughout coaching spills over into other aspects of your life.

For example, a long-time client of ours sought coaching to help with burnout and feeling like she needed a different role in her current company. Through her coaching work, she realized that what she really wanted to do was become a freelancer. But she didn’t have the confidence to believe that she could actually step out on her own. With the support of her coach, she is beginning her entrepreneurial journey.

Find Clarity & Direction (When You’re Stuck in the Career Fog)

When I worked with a coach for the first time, I had found myself in the familiar position of knowing that I didn’t want to do my current job anymore but having zero clue what I wanted to do instead. That lack of clarity kept me in a position where I was burnt out and unhappy for longer than necessary.

Once I began my coaching process, I felt an immediate sigh of relief. I was no longer stuck or worse, randomly scanning job boards. I was taking a logical and guided approach to identifying my next path. And I realized that everyone needs and deserves this kind of support throughout their career.

There was an opportunity to bring even more process and rigor to the coaching world, the essential ingredients that brought me from lost and frustrated to clear and moving forward.

And so, Ama La Vida was born.

Career coaching helps individuals cut through confusion, get clear on their values, strengths, and goals, and create a career path with intention. ALV’s proven coaching process brings structure to the often overwhelming journey of finding career clarity. We’ve now helped over 5,000 people just like you to find more career fulfillment.

Find Job Satisfaction with Alignment Between Work and Self

When someone feels ready to leave their job, the typical kneejerk reaction is to immediately start applying to new ones. What happens, however, is without any inspection of your motivations and patterns, you can easily find yourself in a similar situation in your next role.

Coaching helps prevent this from happening. We take a thoughtful and proven approach to helping our clients develop self-awareness and identify what they need from the next phase of their career to find fulfillment.

Perhaps they’ve never done this kind of introspection before. Perhaps their path has been shaped by external forces like parents. Or perhaps their needs have changed due to changing life circumstances. Whatever the reason, a misalignment has emerged, and it’s important to bring intentionality to their next move.

A well-structured coaching program can support people in discovering what truly matters to them—leading to roles that feel fulfilling and aligned with what’s most important to them.

Career Transitions, Without the DIY Panic

The job market has gotten exponentially more complex and difficult to navigate in recent years. The volume of applicants per job has skyrocketed, and the introduction of AI has completely transformed the way applicants get noticed. Many career transition clients come to us feeling confused and hopeless.

Coaches are experts in the job search process and stay up to date on the latest industry trends so you don’t have to. They will help guide you through everything from how to position your transferable skills to how to write a cover letter to how to negotiate your offer.

Partnering with a career coach ensures you have strategic, actionable steps at all times, plus the direct experience of someone who’s seen what works and what doesn’t.

Boost Individual Performance (Without Burning Out)

Career coaching is not just reserved for transitions. On-the-job coaching is a game-changer. It allows you to focus on your own individual performance while cultivating an abundance of opportunities for you to achieve career success in the future.

Your coach will provide feedback that helps propel your career forward with targeted professional development and stress management techniques that actually work. They do this all while supporting your growth without burnout or overwhelm.

This type of ongoing learning and thoughtful approach to growth is what sets apart the high achievers from the rest of the pack. That not only translates into more compensation but more opportunities and leverage at work.

Leadership Coaching: For Humans Who Lead Other Humans

When most people become managers, they are taught some HR basics, but very rarely are they taught how to manage and lead other complex human beings. This is a gross organizational oversight, which leads to most leaders—those who directly impact the wellbeing of your employees, oversee performance and set the tone for your culture—winging it when it comes to people management and leadership.

Leadership coaching isn’t just about managing team members effectively, it’s executive coaching that helps align your leadership style with your organizational goals. It’s about emotional intelligence, communication skills, and becoming a more aware, adaptable, inspiring human.

Via the growth of the leader, coaching supports the wellbeing and engagement of direct reports. This cultivates an all around more supportive and engaged team culture.

Leadership Skills Improve Team Performance and Employee Engagement

Raise your hand if you’ve ever had a bad manager. This is a pretty universal experience. And if you reflect on it, I’ll bet it didn’t inspire you to do your best work.

People generally don’t go to work thinking, “ How can I be a bad manager today?”

It just happens due to lack of self-awareness, poor communication and poor strategic execution.

That is why leadership coaching is so vital. It enhances communication, builds trust, and creates stronger relationships between leaders and their direct reports. This has a measurable impact on employee engagement, team morale, and overall workplace culture, helping your top talent stay motivated and thrive.

Spark Creative Thinking and Smarter Strategy

In the hustle and bustle of day-to-day work demands, it’s easy to not take a moment to look at the big picture. You rush from one to-do to the next. It can be challenging to carve out time to think strategically and make sure that all that running you’re doing is in the right direction.

Leadership coaching sessions provide a container for this type of reflection and strategic planning to take place. And best yet, you’re doing it alongside the best thought partner ever: someone who has been in your shoes before and who has enough distance from your situation to see the forest for the trees.

As a leader, your executive coach will help you zoom out, consider new approaches, and make decisions with greater clarity. They will give you both the tools and the space to think more creatively and strategically. This helps elevate your leadership from reactive to proactive.

The Ripple Effect of Coaching (It Doesn’t Stop With You)

One of the beautiful things about coaching is that it has a ripple effect. By being coached you are exposed to new ways of thinking and new processes for supporting others. At Ama La Vida we believe, and research continues to back this up, that leaders who integrate coaching skills into their management styles outperform those who don’t. So, while you are benefitting in your life and at work, your coaching also serves those around you.

When leaders change, their teams do too. So much of learning and culture forming occurs through observation. And when your team observes you growing as a leader, their game, their empathy and their desire to support those around them grows too. This has a direct benefit on organizational goals as team collaboration and alignment is critical for business performance.

That’s the positive impact of coaching—it doesn’t just help one person; it helps shape entire organizations.

Life Coaching: Support for the Whole Human

There is an important reason we named our business Ama La Vida which means “Love Life” and not “Love Work.” While work takes up a significant amount of our waking hours, it is not who we are. It is meant to serve our lives – not dictate them. And so, it’s important to clarify that coaching work, even when it initially focuses on career and leadership topics, is intended to support you as a human being, not just an employee.

Even if you initially seek coaching in a professional context, your habits, emotions and thoughts are not so neatly compartmentalized. What’s happening in your relationship will be on your mind at work. Burnout at work spills over into your habits at home. Your coach will support you as a whole human with complex and interconnected needs, guiding your personal and professional life with clarity and compassion.

A Deeper Level of Self-Awareness to Feel More Like You

One of the biggest creators of life dissatisfaction is when we are living in a way that is misaligned with our values and who we truly are. This often happens unknowingly, but something just feels off.

For example, when asked you’d say that family is your number one priority. But you constantly find yourself missing out on family events due to work obligations or distracted by your phone at the dinner table. It’s subtle, but over time, internal frustration grows when you start to recognize that you’re not actually living as the person you know you are.

Life coaching can help to bring realizations like these to the surface so that you can begin to create more alignment in your values and your actions. Your coach will help you uncover patterns, identify those values and recognize the beliefs that shape your choices, often without you even realizing it.

The best part is your coach isn’t here to judge or tell you what to do. It’s all about discovering your own answers with clarity and confidence, with an ally in your corner.

Stress Management That Actually Works

When feeling stressed and overwhelmed, receiving cliche, one-size-fits-all advice from even very well-meaning friends and family members can put you over the edge. You don’t need Google-able tactics or solutions that you know don’t apply to your situation. You need tailored support from someone whose sole job is to help you. Your life coach will offer you personalized tools and strategies to improve stress management and ultimately your mental health, the kind that align with your personal development goals and actually make you feel supported.

Everything from life skills, time management, goal setting, habit formation, belief structures and mental models may come up in your coaching to help you manage stress and reduce overwhelm.

The Road to Real Work-Life Balance

Many people shudder when they hear the term “work-life balance.” It implies some impossible-to-achieve tranquility where all aspects of your life are firing on all cylinders and working together harmoniously. Well it’s time to release those expectations, as that vision of work-life balance is not a reality.

Work-life balance isn’t about doing everything perfectly. It’s about defining what balance looks like for you and making intentional choices that support your personal development, professional life, and overall life satisfaction. There will be tradeoffs, but your coach will help you to identify what matters most to you during this particular season of your life and to ensure that those are the things that get prioritized.

Coaching Works. No, Really.

I too was a skeptic. When I was first given coaching by a previous employer, I thought I was doing it for them, not me. I saw it as checking another “corporate box” to further my career, not realizing I was stepping into one of the most transformative training programs of my life. The benefits of coaching snuck up on me in the best way.

Not only did it help me achieve tangible goals like navigating a career transition and learning to manage a team for the first time, but it helped me change my mindset and outlook throughout those experiences which was incredibly powerful.

So… Should You Get a Coach? (Here’s How to Decide)

Investing in coaching is a big decision and one not to be taken lightly. It’s both a financial and time investment, but it has a clear ROI for those who are coaching ready. Is that you?

• Have you been feeling stuck and not sure how to move forward?
• Are you ready to make a change?
• Do you feel you’re missing a thought partner or expert guidance to get you where you want to go?
• Are you willing to put in the work to bring your goals to life?

If you answered “yes” to most of these questions, it’s time. You are the perfect fit for coaching, and are ready to realize your full potential.

Start by booking a free consultation with our team.

Our relationship strategists will ask thoughtful, intentional questions to understand the type of support you need. They’ll then filter through our expert team of potential coaches to match you with the right coach for your goals, personality, and preferences. No guesswork. Just a smart, personalized match to get you moving in the right direction!

Ready to take the first step and experience the benefits of coaching for yourself? Book your free consult here.