Life Coaching in Lodi

Maybe your children are fleeing the nest. Maybe you've experienced a great loss. Maybe you are tired of sixty-hour work weeks. Each of these situations may leave you unsatisfied, on a quest for change. But the question is the same: What now?

Just as an athletic coach trains your body, and a piano teacher instructs your fingers, life coaches help guide you toward getting what you want in life.

"A coach is your partner who is working with you to get really clear on what it is you want," said Jennifer Grainger, a self-discovery coach in Lodi. "In coaching, we're looking at where you are now and where you want to be. We tap into your own inner wisdom so that you can connect with yourself about what you want in life."

As people continue to live longer and as the information age broadens, more people are looking to life coaching as a way to manage stress and change. Women, especially, are learning how to handle the second adulthood that emerges after children, after careers and during middle age. Without telling their clients what to do, life coaches ask simple questions to settle complicated issues.

Grainger became a life coach three years ago after witnessing the effects of like coaching on a woman who was confused about what to do next in life. Though life coaches are not required to to get a license, Grainger attends a coaching institute regularly.

Grainger herself is a product of life coaching. With two life coaches herself, she is living the life she has created for herself.

Her Lodi home is peaceful. Partially melted candles sit on metal wall mounts. Mexican pottery sits on shelves and is painted in framed pictures. Soft music plays throughout the living room and there is peacefulness.

She doesn't watch TV, except for the one movie a week she gets through NetFlix.com. She likes romantic comedies — "When Harry Met Sally" is her favorite. She reads, a lot. She takes online college classes. Currently she's studying the history of the English language.

It's obvious, though, that her profession is her passion. She loves her clients and is continually amazed by their ability to find answers within themselves. Afterall, her job is to show them what is hidden within.

Coaching is not therapy or counseling. With coaching, "your life is already working," you just want more out of it.

"Coaching is if you want to really have a full life, to live with passion, with gusto, to achieve the best you can be," Grainger said.

Leslie Avery has been one of Grainger's clients for three months. She is working on moving back in with her husband after being separated.

"I'm going to (Grainger) to make sure I don't lose my identity," Avery said. "Women sometimes have a hard time not getting lost in a relationship."

What Is Coaching?

Professional coaching is a partnership between a qualified coach and an individual that supports the achievement of extraordinary results, based on set goals. Individuals focus on the skills and actions needed to successfully produce their personally relevant results.
The individual chooses the focus of conversation, whil the coach listens and contributes observations and questions as well as concepts and principles which can assist in generating possibilities and identifying actions. Through this, the clarity that is needed to support the most effective actions is achieved. Coaching accelerates the progress by providing greater focus and awareness of possibilities.
Source: http://www.coachfederation.org

Before starting coaching with Grainger, Avery had a goal in mind. She didn't go to Grainger for emotional help or counseling, but to be guided in the direction that would help her meet her goal.

"In counseling, they focus on the past. Life coaching is how to deal with today," Avery said.

Though Grainger is the only known life coach in the Lodi area, she says that in the Bay Area, it is becoming normal for people to have life coaches. Life coaching is emerging as a new tool to aid in daily life.

"Life is becoming so complex in this information age that's it's really not possible to operate without someone to bounce ideas off of," Grainger said. "There's this new trend toward developing a team just so you can get done with everything you need to do."

With a personal coach, you can keep what's important to you at the top of to-do lists.

Unlike friends, coaches do not give advice. They are disconnected from your desires. They draw out of you what the best answer is through asking questions like these: What is most important to you? What would it do to have that in your life? What are your choices right now? What could satisfy that need? How would you describe what you're missing?

The 1960s brought up many issues for women that Grainger's clients are facing today. Not only can they have good jobs and sometimes make just as much money as men, they are also living longer.

Women in their midlife, which is now between ages 35 and 65, are the first generation of women to deal with the idea of a second adulthood. Grainger says the 60 million women in the United States who are in their forties today will live to be 90.

"There is a lot of confusion about 'How do I do this,' 'What are my obligations,' 'What am I free to do?'" Grainger said.

Now, women aren't just settling with dissatisfaction in their fifties, they are doing something about it.

"If it's a stay-at-home mom, all of a sudden she wants to start a company. If it's a single woman who never married, who never had children, she wants to leave the working world and try something different."

Coaching is one way women — especially in her group — deal with these issues. Sometimes it involves moving out of the country or leaving husbands and allowing women to develop their own selves.

Life coaching doesn't only apply to women's issues. Anyone of any age can find a life coach to aid them dillemas that involve college, loneliness, careers and people. Grainger's hope with clients is to show them that any goal is attainable — the bigger the goal, the better.

"We create our life and it can be whatever we want it to be," Grainger said.

For more information on Grainger's teleprogram or life coaching services, visit http://www.jennifergrainger.com or call 369-6188.

Contact reporter Lauren Nelson at laurenn@lodinews.com.

Reader Feedback

Fischgoth wrote on Jun 28, 2007 9:42 AM:

" Right on Dale! It isn't rocket science it's common sense. "

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Dale wrote on Jun 28, 2007 7:36 AM:

" I am 67 years old, single and living 200 miles from my family. My advice to people who have no children living close and are retiring. Get off you butts and hit the gym several days a week. At 67 I bench press 265 pounds. Get involved in programs that help people with addictions and have other needs. It is time to start paying back to society what we have taken. If you don,t have hobbies, start one. You now have time to take care of your health. It is a wonderful life. Live it. "

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Wanda L. wrote on Jun 28, 2007 6:47 AM:

" People might be quick to dismiss this as "who-ee", but she seems to be helping people focus on their happiness, so what's wrong with that?!?! "

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Metric Time System wrote on Jun 27, 2007 8:26 AM:

" ..your own inner wisdom .. connect with yourself ..?? How wise are we that we have an inner wisdom but don't know about it and can't reach it on our own? These ideas are borrowed from TM, true Yoga, and other meditative new-age disciplines that circumvent reality for an emotional experience which is wrongfully interpreted as spiritual. "

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