Practitioners and clients alike will point to "the value of the relationship" as a primary factor in the success or otherwise of developmental partnerships.

While the nature and chemistry of the relationship is indeed an essential ingredient, I think there is more to it.

The primary factor in success, I believe, is the whole experience of working in partnership with a collaborator whose entire attention is dedicated to our interests. The relationship is only one factor in this experience.

The way I understand the developmental process is as follows:

• The client starts with an awareness of their own potential which is contradictory, possibly limited and probably distorted;
• The coach has a view of human potential which is consistent, generous and, ideally, undistorted;
• In the working partnership, the client 'takes on' or 'lives in' the coach's view until it becomes once more their own. He or she then brings an end to the partnership.

In other words, the client is experiencing the coach's world of nurture and possibility for themselves. The coach's own life is evidence that this favored world is a viable one. The client can therefore feel safe to abandon old ways and develop new ones.

The experience of life coaching with this level of depth and intensity can be both exciting and daunting. It is not an academic exercise but a real life challenge that the client finds themselves in.

The objective is change. Change is unsettling not only to the client but to all those who are affected by her or him, and by all those who are affected by them in their turn. The ripple effect of deep change in an individual is extensive.

Out of fairness to all, this change must be managed with skill and thoughtfulness: our need to change is not a licence to impose change on others. We need to bring them with us if at all possible.

This is part of the experience of dynamic life coaching. A client sees themselves not as a victim who 'needs' some kind of 'treatment', but as an active agent who is triggering a sequence of events which will result in the betterment of life for a significant number of people.

The client, in other words, is a responsible human being with the strength to face up to their personal and social responsibilities. That is also part of the discovery and experience in dynamic life coaching.

Whose path is it?

One of the ways in which a dynamic life coach demonstrates his or her faith in the client is by staying with them wherever they go. If we truly believe that the client knows best then we must follow and support them on that path.

This is sometimes difficult. We are each very different and our intentions are complex and sometimes contradictory. It is hard to be in partnership, psychologically united, where the direction of the partnership is entirely set by one partner - the client.

However, under stress, the dynamic life coach will remember that none of us knows what is right for another. After all, none of us knows:

• what we are here for, if anything;
• what our actual operating mechanism is (if indeed we have one) in a subatomic, quantum world;
• how long our bodies will survive;
• what our emotions actually are;
• what consciousness is;
• pretty much anything of significance!

These are the 'facts' of existence and they are all beyond our understanding. Yet, on some level we are confronted with them every day. On some level we know we know nothing but we continue anyway.

We humans are indeed wonderful creatures, but even that is no guarantee that nature values us any more than it did the dinosaurs.

All of this is part of the experience of dynamic life coaching. It is truly about life. It is truly about change. It is about reconciling your unanswerable questions on the nature of the universe with your pragmatic choice of the best bananas in the supermarket.

It is not about the life coach telling you how things are but about accompanying you on a potentially risky voyage while you find out for yourself.

And if you stumble into a mess of horrors, your coach will be there with you to fight them off. Not out of some altruistic do-gooding arrogance, but out of the same fear you experience because s/he's in there too!

With a dynamic life coach you are never alone unless you want to be. That is the uniqueness of this experience. And within it you will grow and extend your living 'space' until one day you decide you've gone far enough. And then you'll stop.

The decision to stop coaching is one which will trigger discussion but which your coach will accept. This is because it is in everyone's best interest for you to grow and develop your own life.

Putting it selfishly, I need your uniqueness to open up new paths for myself and others. These won't be brought into existence if I successfully dissuade you from following them.

We all need to build our own personal philosophy of beliefs and values which will form meaningful frameworks for our lives. Then, our choices become mere forks in the road of life, each of which can lead us to our own sense of fulfillment and accomplishment

The whole purpose of life coaching as I practice it is to uncover and release potential. On the way, we will also learn how to deal with fear of failure, boredom, oversensitivity, and how to accept our gifts and talents.

I hope this information has been helpful to you. If you would like to find out more about Dynamic Life Coaching or myself, please email or call to schedule a free 30-minute 'phone discussion.

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