What is your plan as a Kids Life Coach?
“What’s the life task here? Never mind what you want. What does life want?”
That question stopped me recently. I had been thinking about coaching sessions, programs, outcomes — all the things we want to achieve as children’s life coaches. Progress, impact, change. But the question shifted my focus completely. What if coaching isn’t always about what we plan or want to make happen? What if it’s more about listening to what life itself is asking of us in each moment?
In our work with children, structure gives us safety. We rely on session plans, frameworks, goals, and measurable outcomes. They help us feel prepared and give families confidence in the process. Yet, the truth we all know — quietly, somewhere underneath — is that the most powerful moments in coaching almost never happen according to plan.
They arrive in pauses, in detours, in those unexpected turns where a child says something that changes everything. Sometimes, it’s the question you didn’t expect to ask, or the silence that stretches longer than usual. Maybe it’s when a child resists an exercise or drifts off-topic and you feel the tug to bring them back — but something in you says, “Wait. Stay here a little longer.”
That’s the life task in action. It’s the moment life asks you to respond, not from the plan, but from presence.
The “life task” is never something we choose. It’s something that reveals itself through interruption and uncertainty. As coaches, that’s where our real learning happens too in how we meet the unpredictable. Sometimes the task is to listen more deeply than feels comfortable. Other times it’s to hold space for a child’s frustration instead of fixing it. And sometimes it’s to model curiosity — to show that not knowing is not failure, but freedom.
Over the years, I’ve seen this pattern repeat itself in every retreat and program I’ve led. The breakthroughs — the ones that genuinely shift a child’s confidence, perspective, or sense of self — almost always come from moments that weren’t on the schedule. They come when we stop trying to control the direction and trust what’s unfolding.
Children are exquisitely tuned into authenticity. They can feel when you’re open, grounded, and genuinely curious. They sense when you’re not rushing them or reaching for the next step. In those moments, they often surprise you — revealing truths, emotions, and insights that couldn’t have surfaced under the weight of a plan.
So, as you move through this week, consider this: what might life be asking of you in your coaching practice right now? Maybe it’s patience. Maybe it’s stillness. Maybe it’s courage? The courage to let go of the perfect plan and allow what’s real to take its place.
Coaching children isn’t just about guiding them; it’s about being guided too. By them, by the moment, and by whatever life is asking of you right then. When we loosen our grip, the space for transformation opens and that’s where the magic happens.
