Much of my coaching work, at one level, all of it, over the years has been related to live transitions.  We recognize that we have natural transitions in our life, some common ones are;

• graduation from high school, 
• perhaps college or job training, 
• commitment to a marriage or other relationship
• becoming parents
• career changes, including periods of unemployment
• economic upturns and downturns
• children leaving home
• relationship shifts
• retirement

Each of these changes in our lives challenge an existing way of understanding ourselves and the world.  As we successfully negotiate different life changes, we face a bit of the challenge of "transcendence or despair".   

At the same time we are going through external transitions, we progress through internal developmental transitions throughout life.  Our perceptions of ourselves and others, our roles, and our perceptions of life evolve.  All this has become more challenging as we have become less connected to other generations in our lives.  

Throughout most of history, as we went through these shifts, we had other close family members and friends who had successfully negotiated these transitions, and could nudge us through using the wisdom from their own lives.  This has changed for many of us and has been doing so since the second world war.  We have become more isolated by generation, and the pace of life has increased, resulting in less effective natural coaching relationships.  

Furthermore, we train our young people through all their school years to rely more on their peers for support and bonding than for older generations.  We isolate them for the majority of their daylight hours in groups of others their own age, with only one adult around at a time.  That adult has a very goal focused role which discourages a more global coaching function.  The majority of teachers, coaches, and other adults in a young person's life hasn't had time for broader relationships for many years now.  In addition, healthy coaching relationships have been sabotaged by the prevalence of sexual predators in our society, and the need to keep a healthy distance from young people so that parents and others don't get the wrong impression.

So it seems we have evolved to where we need personal coaches.  Up until recently, people going through these natural transitions only had therapists available to help with these issues, and it often wasn't that successful.  Therapy is a problem focused process, and transitions are meaning and goal focused.  Over 70% of the CEOs of fortune 500 companies have personal coaches.  President Clinton hired Tony Robbins for that purpose.  

One of the major roles of coaches is to help people transition through life stages in ways that increase the meaning in their lives and help them develop meaning.  There are questions we help people explore during each change:

• What does it mean when I (graduate high school, graduate college, decide to marry, become a parent, see my children leave, retire)?
• What am I ending or giving up in this process?  
• How am I, or will I be different after this?
• What goals do I need to set to help myself move forward in a meaningful way?
• What, if any steps do I need to take to start achieving those goals?
• What have I learned in this process that produces wisdom and/or a deeper spiritual meaning in my life?

Think about yourself and those around you and notice how others negotiate changes, and how you can more proactively navigate yours.