Life coaching is generally a very solution-orientated, strengths-based, confidence and curiosity building approach to helping. It is most frequently used with people who feel otherwise well and untroubled, but who are experiencing a period of life that involves transformation or passing need.  It looks for strengths, finds areas of highest motivation and identifies past and future goals.

A key part of coaching is searching out what patterns have been repeated ineffectively in the past, then finding new approaches that are yet to be trialled, and encouraging strategic implementation of these new approaches moving forward. Coaching can help clients reduce negative thinking styles and uncover concealed blocks. Effective life coaches tend to call on techniques from psychological “motivational interviewing”. These are used often by organisational and clinical psychologists to provide practical help to clients recovering from more serious issues, looking to adapt to changed conditions with a view to thriving rather than merely surviving.