Therapy

From the Coaches’ Corner

What is a personal life coach?

A personal life coach is a person who motivates and inspires you to achieve your goals. I will be assisting you in finding ways of organizing yourself and creating strategic plans to make things happen. Life coaching is based on the premise that you have all the character strengths to make changes in your life. What may be lacking is a formula for how to make those changes. It is different from psychotherapy in that it does not focus on personality weaknesses or on origins of trauma. Life coaching will teach you how to set boundaries. It will provide insight as to how to make things happen.

Why the need?

As you get to know me, you will realize that I think we have a society that moves way too fast. People cram too much into their day and don’t spend enough time figuring out what they really want out of life. As a psychotherapist and life coach, much of my work is helping clients to focus on themselves. Women especially are notorious for putting themselves last. This column will identify life issues and then offer practical ways of finding solutions. Guidelines will be simplistic and concise. As you well know, time is a precious commodity and this column will offer you a new slant on getting what you want, when you want it.

What you can expect!

I would like this column to be personal and reflect your needs. I hope to have a relationship with my readers. I want you to contribute to the column by mailing or e-mailing me with your current dilemmas and successes. I will pass them on to you, the readers, and we will discuss options that will make a difference in how you strategize your goals.

You will be reading about issues such as relationship building, conflict resolution, self-esteem, boundary setting, stress management, etc. I will recommend articles and books to read and give you homework assignments to get you motivated to make those needed changes! When I do this with my clients, they tell me that they end up knowing themselves, and their strengths, better. They say that I have an uncanny ability to nurture them like the mother they didn’t have and give homework assignments that create meaningful changes. A common theme in my 21 years of practice is that people are not encouraged to know their strengths and pursue their visions. This is what I hope to provide to you.

My life goal is to reach as many people as possible and to help change lives!

A little about me

As you already may be able to tell, I love what I do. I enjoy watching people change in positive ways that make them feel more fulfilled and excited about life. My clients tell me that I help them “see their potential”.

I am looking forward to developing a relationship and encouraging you to take better care of yourself. One of the best ways to do this is to find supportive people to discuss the ideas you have gained from this column. I am hoping we can develop a support network for each other. We need a better system for instilling this for ourselves and others. This column was created just to do that. I look forward to working with you.

Carol Juergensen Sheets is a Certified Marriage and Family Psychotherapist and works at Indianapolis Psychiatric Associates. She provides seminars on self-esteem, body image, relationship enrichment, and other pertinent topics.