5 Life-Changing Ways Coaching is Different than Therapy
It’s easy to see offers of coaches everywhere, especially this time of year. These days it’s a loose term that a lot of people use. A good number of people who call themselves coaches don’t have any proper certifications and experience, which doesn’t help either. If you want to know more about me and my coaching qualifications, you can check them out here. And making things worse, the term often gets used in Corporate America to mean feedback.
Coaching is Not The Same as Therapy
Coaching is NOT feedback, or mentoring, or even therapy. But it absolutely can work in combination with any of them. Therapy often focuses on the psychological functioning and emotional health. And while those are important, your potential, and your wellbeing in so much broader than that. Physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual wellbeing are so interconnected, and you truly need to address all in order to thrive. But often, life and other things interfere with our ability to care for ourselves properly, our ability to thrive or even to achieve what we know we are meant to achieve.
What coaching really does is get to the interference in our lives that is keeping us from our true potential.
Here’s five life-changing ways that coaching is different than therapy:
1. Architecture is to Coaching as Archeology is to Therapy
I’ve heard the difference explained this way – therapy is like Archeology. You are sifting and sorting and uncovering things from the past. Whereas coaching has you creating a plan, establishing a foundation, and building upon that. Said differently, in coaching we focus on the present. What is creating interference in your life and keeping you from your goals? That interference may stem from past behaviors. But in coaching we focus on reshaping those patterns today and moving forward.
For example, when I work with clients on why they don’t prioritize their self-care, often they don’t feel that they are worthy of self-care or deserving of it. Self-worth issues may have been a lifelong struggle for them. But instead of trying to go back and uncover what caused their feelings of low self-worth, we work on taking steps today, to build up their self-worth.
2. Coaching is Person-Focused, not Problem-Focused
Coaching is really only every about helping you reach your full potential. We look at what may be interfering with that, but it’s focused on you and your potential. Whereas therapy often is more focused on the problem.
In my health coaching training, we often referred to the concept of bio-individuality. One woman’s food is another woman’s allergen. In my own coaching practice today, I focus on the uniqueness of each client. What works for one client’s wellness journey, doesn’t work for another. They have different goals and different interests. A client may want to be active, and jump start a fitness routine and lose weight and get in shape. Another may just need to relax and rejuvenate. Someone may like energy work, and another may feel it doesn’t do anything.
What makes you unique, your interests, and your specific goals all factor into YOUR plan. So whatever plan we create is unique to you. Coaching is about combining my expertise with your specific set of circumstances and your knowledge of what does and doesn’t work for you.
3. Coaching is One-Part Insight and One-Part Action.
I’m debating saying it’s two-parts action. Two parts for every one part of insight. Action is that important in coaching. Therapy tends to focus more on insight. There may be actions at the end of the therapy session but those usually center around insights. With coaching, we are working on creating a step-by-step plan. We explore options, but you ultimately decide what you will do.
If a client of mine wants to be more active, we explore all the things getting in the way of that goal (insight). And we come up ideas and options with how she might overcome those obstacles. Then she commits to putting one of those options into place (action). But at the end of the day what she chooses must work for her, not me or anyone else, or she won’t be successful.
So, you set the goals. Not just for your life, or for the full program, but for each coaching session we have. You commit to what actions you will take outside of our coaching sessions. And you deliver on those results.
4. Coaching is Results Focused
With coaching, you don’t have to wait months and months for change. YOU get results move as quickly as YOU can manage. It relies exclusively on you and the work you do. In fact, this is true in life. Any goal or desire you have come down to the whether you do the work. However, you aren’t left to your own devices to figure out what to do.
Coaching is a partnership. We take your desires and your goals, but I help you with the strategy, or the plan. Think about it exactly like a coach of the sports team. The coach develops the game plan. And the coach ensures you have what you need (practice, training, experience, etc.) to succeed. But on game day, you take the field. You play the game, and you win the game.
5. Coaching is About Accountability
Accountability is the most essential part of coaching beyond the partnership I mentioned earlier. You get me cheering you on from the sidelines. But you must do the work. And if you don’t do the work, you must admit it to me. That’s ultimately how you overcome the interference keeping you from your full potential.
In each coaching session we check-in and see if you’ve done what you committed to. Clients often don’t want to have to report back that they didn’t do something they said they would do. So oftentimes they will just do it, so they can report to me they did.
My clients often struggle with keeping the lifestyle changes up after they go on a life-changing wellness trip or retreat. The reason is because they return home to their normal life and fall back into their old routines. So, we come up for a plan of what they will do went they get back. After a session or two of telling me this week they will finally do it, my client really does not want to come back to me and tell me another week went by without cooking one spa recipe!
Of course, if they didn’t do what they said they would, this is where we spend time exploring why not. We get to the root cause, what that interference is. And we come up with options and game plan for the next time it happens. For example, why is my client struggling to eat better? Is it time? Or is it because they don’t want to cook? So, we explore options, like maybe to start it’s not every day, but one day a week? Maybe there is a way to prep a bunch of meals ahead of time for a quick and easy, but healthy meal one night. We look at what’s getting in the way – that interference – and what options may be to get around that.
Summary
Encouragement and accountability make all the difference, which is why you get life-changing results with coaching vs therapy. Its partnership that combines my expertise in what you are seeking with your expertise with what does and doesn’t work for you. Together we develop a plan, one that is focused on you and not your problems, helping you to overcome the obstacles and achieve your full potential. Designing your life to be everything you want it to be, from this moment forward.
Interested in working with a coach? Learn more here.
If you are struggling with mental health, please seek therapy. We can still work together in coaching, but you should seek therapy right away if you need it. Here are some helpful mental health resources.
Mental Health Resources
NATIONAL THERAPY LOCATOR
MENTAL HEALTH
- NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Health
- Mental Health America
- NIMH: National Institute of Mental Health
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