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| FEATURES | BY CLAIRE DAVIES |
 Karen Ali |
Claire Davies changing your life needs a little extra OK TEAM. It’s 2004 and things are going to change. Our number one concerns are wealth, health and happiness. Now, go get it! Such bellowing seldom excites, particularly at this time of year and with this in mind I was worrying about my visit to see Karen Ali, a life coach living in Eton College Road, Chalk Farm. A fear of jogging on the spot and chanting was joined by a deep- seated cynicism – why was this person qualified to tell me how to live my life? After 90 minutes spent in Ms Ali’s company it became clear that to have life coaching is to neither be patronised by a new-age advice giver nor subjected to a noisy motivational pep talk. Ms Ali, 30, is not a therapist or a councillor, she does not dredge up the past but turns to the future. She is interested in your goals, in what you value and so in turn what you are hoping to achieve, be it weight loss, a change of job or a new attitude to your relationships. Some clients do not even know what goals they are trying for when they first talk to Ms Ali- they just have a nudging feeling that there must be more to life. With a self-help book you can put it down and walk away, you cannot do this with a life coach. Ms Ali uses visualisation techniques and simple but powerful questioning. The questions can be hard to answer but the responses you give, with thought, are honest. The ideas being discussed remain fairly abstract – there is no mention of names or specifics preventing it from becoming just a gossip or a chance to get things off your chest. Ms Ali said: “I do all my coaching over the phone. I have a very strong sense of intuition which is helped by the anonymity of the telephone; it means the clients can talk to me in their own homes, where they feel comfortable and people seem to find it much easier to be honest on the phone. I am not here to judge them and I have no right to offer advice on their lives, it is for them to find the solution. “I will interrupt if I feel the client is getting off the point or just relaying stories, I want them to get value for money and it is my job to keep focusing in on what they are saying, looking at the changes they can make. “Life coaching is often dismissed by those who haven’t tried it as wishy-washy, but people are often shocked by how practical and tangible the methods used are. Even if you are the most cynical person you should give it a go and see if you still feel the same about it – make an informed decision.” Ms Ali offers a free introductory service of 20-30 minutes. This allows both herself and the new client to see if the sessions can usefully continue. No serious, ethical life coach would take a client’s money (the sessions are fairly expensive) without first undertaking this initial free session. Life coaching has certainly helped Ms Ali experience greater satisfaction in her life. She said: “I discovered life coaching after I was made redundant from my job in management consultancy. That was the lowest point in my life and I felt like a complete failure. “Today I’ve lost two stone, I’m doing life-coaching full time, and in November I got engaged to my long-term partner Angelo and am preparing for our wedding in Greece in September. “I don’t have a perfect life but the skills I have learned as a life coach enable me to ask the right questions. I’m not bestowing my knowledge upon someone but helping that person find what’s within them, empowering them to make the changes in their own life.” n For more information about life-coaching call Karen Ali on 07753 262 117. |
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