Graduating from university can be a time of excitement, but also of some uncertainty. Transitioning from school to the working world can be daunting for some, as it can carry with it a certain kind of uncertainty for those who may not feel as prepared for it as they could be. However, students engaging with life coaching services—and the collaborative, solution-based process behind them—has been shown to bear positive results in terms of students’ sense of purpose in life, happiness with their chosen major, and overall self-confidence, among other areas (Lefdahl-Davis, Huffman, Stancil, & Alayan, 2018).
While leaving school after getting through several years of it can be a frightening and intimidating transitional period for many, life coaching can help. Using the techniques you’ve learned from life coaching school on these clients while they’re still finishing their degrees can help make such a transition that much easier. Here’s how those in life coach school can help clients who are just finishing their undergraduate studies.
There Are Many Ways to Help Them After Life Coach School, and They’ve Been Shown to Work
Among the biggest reasons life coaching has been shown to be effective with clients is in how it focuses on their strengths and helps them achieve life goals, overcome potential roadblocks, improve their well-being, and navigate transitions in life (Lefdahl-Davis, Huffman, Stancil, & Alayan, 2018). The latter point is especially true in this case, given how transitioning out of academic life is arguably one of the biggest changes a young adult can experience. More specifically, millennials often experience what’s known as a “quarter-life crisis”, where feelings of isolation and sadness can result from having too many life choices and coping with immense changes (Ha, 2017).
Through their life coaching courses, life coach students learn skills like how to help clients overcome roadblocks, set and achieve goals, and help clients build up interpersonal, problem-solving, and communication skills (“Rhodes Wellness College: Life Coach Diploma”). This is especially pertinent considering how financial security, job stability, and missing significant milestones in life are among the biggest sources of worry for millennials as they get older (Bunch, 2019). While millennials may be known by some as “the anxious generation” (Scheffler, et al., 2018), coaching can help give them a sense of direction in life they may not necessarily have already developed, especially at such a critical juncture.
It’s Particularly Worth Trying to Help Undergraduates During their Studies—Not Just After Them
A number of factors can act as challenges for students in the midst of their undergraduate studies, including academic obstacles, uncertainty over career decisions, and satisfaction with life—all of which can be helped with life coaching (Lefdahl-Davis, Huffman, Stancil, & Alayan, 2018). Furthermore, various approaches to coaching have been shown to have some success in educational environments, such as solution-focused coaching, behavioural coaching, and cognitive behavioural coaching (Devine, Meyers, & Houssemand, 2013).
The effectiveness of coaching has also been evaluated with first-year medical students, for whom it showed stellar rates of adherence, especially as students in that field can be prone to feelings of anxiety, depression, fatigue, and stress (Cameron, Dromerick, Ahn, & Dromerick, 2019). Through coaching, students can develop solutions and put personal plans for growth into action based on coaches’ strategies of goal setting, active listening, creating awareness, and managing progress (Cameron, Dromerick, Ahn, & Dromerick, 2019). Being coached by those who have gone through life coach school is a strategy that undergraduate students can benefit greatly from both during and after their studies. It can help them set and attain personal and academic goals, and better focus their career search for after they graduate—helping them better manage stress and improve their mental health in the process (Lefdahl-Davis, Huffman, Stancil, & Alayan, 2018).
Are you thinking of attending life coaching school?
Contact Rhodes Wellness College to learn more about our offerings.
Works Cited
Lefdahl-Davis, E. M., Huffman, L., Stancil, J., & Alayan, A. J. (2018, July 20). The Impact of Life Coaching on Undergraduate Students: A Multiyear Analysis of Coaching Outcomes. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.24384/000560.
Devine, M., Meyers, R., & Houssemand, C. (2013). How can Coaching Make a Positive Impact Within Educational Settings? Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 93, 1382–1389. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.10.048
Cameron, D., Dromerick, L. J., Ahn, J., & Dromerick, A. W. (2019). Executive/life coaching for first year medical students: a prospective study. BMC Medical Education, 19(1). doi: 10.1186/s12909-019-1564-4
Ha, L. (2017, September 15). Millennials face life after college, finding a ‘quarter-life crisis’ instead of dream jobs. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/08/millennials-face-life-after-college-finding-a-quarter-life-crisis-instead-of-dream-jobs.html.
Rhodes Wellness College: Life Coach Diploma. (n.d.). Retrieved November 4, 2019, from https://www.rhodescollege.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/life-coach-diploma-program.pdf.
Scheffler, R., Arnold, D., Qazi, H., Harney, J., Linde, L., Dimick, G., & Vora, N. (2018, July). The Anxious Generation: Causes and Consequences of Anxiety … Retrieved from https://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/page/Policy_Brief_Final_071618.pdf.
Bunch, E. (2019, October 1). Therapists say millennials worry most about 5 specific issues. Retrieved from https://www.wellandgood.com/good-advice/millennial-anxiety-causes/.
