THE IMPACT OF LIFE COACHING ON GOAL ATTAINMENT, METACOGNITION AND MENTAL HEALTH

By Adam M. Grant. 2003

515 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Despite its high media profile and growing popularity there have been no empirical investigations of the impact of life coaching on goal attainment, metacognition or mental health. This exploratory study used life coaching as a means of exploring key metacognitive factors involved as individuals move towards goal attainment. In a within-subjects design, twenty adults completed a life coaching program. Participation in the program was associated with enhanced mental health, quality of life and goal attainment. In terms of metacognition, levels of self-reflection decreased and levels of insight increased. Life coaching has promise as an effective approach to personal development and goal attainment, and may prove to be a useful platform for a positive psychology and the investigation of the psychological mechanisms involved in purposeful change in normal, nonclinical populations. In working with individuals to improve the quality of their lives, psychology has traditionally focused on alleviating dysfunctionality or treating psychopathology in clinical or counseling populations rather than enhancing the life experience of normal adult populations. However, it is clear that the general public has a thirst for techniques and processes that enhance life experience and facilitate personal development. The market for personal development material has grown rapidly worldwide since the 1950s (Fried, 1994). Although psychologists feature infrequently as producers of this material, psychology has a genuine and important contribution to make in terms of adapting and validating existing therapeutic models for use with normal populations, and evaluating commercialized approaches to person

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Developmental and Educational Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2477a253728fe796dd6845fa900e1e146423649b

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In Applied Psychology

  1. Adam M. Grant
  2. Gordon B. Spence
  3. Michaella Cavanagh
  4. Jo Rynsaardt
  5. Arnold B. Bakker
  6. H. Parker
  7. Marianne van Woerkom
  8. Linley Curtayne

In Clinical Psychology

  1. Adam M. Grant
  2. Gordon B. Spence
  3. Marianne van Woerkom
  4. Maria Christina Meyers
  5. Jo Rynsaardt
  6. Michaella Cavanagh
  7. Linley Curtayne
  8. Geraldine Burton

In Developmental and Educational Psychology

  1. Michaella Cavanagh
  2. Gordon B. Spence
  3. H. Parker
  4. L. S. Green
  5. Jo Rynsaardt
  6. L. Oades
  7. Linley Curtayne
  8. Geraldine Burton

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