When I say the phrase “life coaching,” I know it can bring up a lot of associations.
Tony Robbins on a stage. Someone who tells you to leave your spouse, move to Europe, and reinvent yourself because you had one emotional breakthrough. Career advice. Executive presence training.
That is not what I do.
In my practice, coaching is not advice. I am not there to tell you what to do, hand you a five-step plan, or rescue you from your own life with my opinion. I follow the code of ethics set by the International Coaching Federation (ICF), which is grounded in the concept that clients are whole, resourceful, and capable. I enter every conversation assuming you are not broken.
You may be stuck. You may be confused. You may be repeating a pattern you cannot see clearly yet. Those are different problems and they have a different solution than someone telling you what to do.
Most of what I do is act as a mirror.
I listen closely to the words you use, the places you speed up, the places you hesitate, the phrases you keep returning to, the things that carry more weight than you expected. I pay attention not only to what you are saying but to what I notice in myself while I am listening. If I feel tension, confusion, or a sense that something does not quite fit, I pay attention to that too. When it feels useful, I will share it as a reflection, not as a conclusion.
I use your language. I repeat your phrases back to you. I reflect your perspective back to you so you can look at it from the outside.
There is something powerful about being listened to that carefully. I am not listening to respond. Not listening to fix you. Listening to help you hear yourself.
One of the reasons I became a coach is that I experienced this firsthand.
Early in my career, I noticed a pattern I could not explain. The more important the stakeholder in the room, the more I would undermine myself. I would walk in prepared and competent, and then something else would take over. Off-color jokes, comments that made me seem less serious than I was. It felt like watching myself from outside my own body.
When I brought this to my coach, she did not give me executive presence tips. She asked me what it felt like.
As I talked it through, I realized three parts of me were operating at once. One part wanted to be honest. One part was ambitious and wanted to be taken seriously. And one part was trying to make everyone around me feel comfortable by making myself seem small and harmless. That last part had been running the show without my knowledge. It thought it was protecting me. It was also sabotaging me.
Once I could see it, I could work with it. I built an internal image, a phoenix like the one from Harry Potter, that represented those parts working together instead of against each other. After that session, the pattern stopped. One hour changed something I had been trying to figure out for years.
That is what coaching can do. Not always in one hour. But sometimes.
Most coaching conversations follow a loose structure: what do you want to talk about, what do you want from this conversation, what is currently true, and what becomes possible from here. But the most important work I do happens in the listening. I notice the phrase you repeat, the pause, the contradiction, the side comment, the way my body feels when you share your stories. And I share that with you.
The goal is not for me to understand you. The goal is for you to see your life change completely because you see things about yourself that used to be hidden. You might be shocked at what you don’t know.
Your life still belongs to you. I am not there to take over your decision-making. I am there to help you see the pattern, belief, or internal conflict that has been shaping the situation, so that your next choice comes from somewhere more intentional.
If you have never tried coaching, I would encourage you to experience it once, with me or with someone else. I offer free demo sessions if you want to see what it actually feels like. You can book one here: https://scheduler.zoom.us/jessica-pingel-vtl8w5/free-coaching-consultation
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I look forward to exploring more life topics with you soon!
