I get asked this constantly, so let me answer it once and clearly.
Therapy is for healing
It’s the right choice when you’re dealing with clinical depression, anxiety disorders, trauma, grief, addiction, or any serious mental health condition that requires diagnosis and treatment. A good therapist is invaluable for this work, and I will always recommend it for people who need it. Therapy often looks backward — at your history, your patterns, how the past is affecting the present.
Life coaching is for building
It’s the right choice when you’re fundamentally healthy but feel stuck, unclear, or like you’re not living up to your potential. Coaching is present and future-focused — where are you now, where do you want to be, and what’s in the way. There’s no diagnosis, no treatment plan, no pathology assumed. Just a person who wants more from their life, and someone in their corner to help them get there.
The two are complementary, not competing. I have clients who work with both a therapist and a coach simultaneously, because they’re doing different things. Therapy is healing the wound. Coaching is running the race.
Who needs a coach?
If you’ve ever thought any of the following, coaching might be worth exploring:
- I know what I should do, I’m just not doing it
- I feel like I’m capable of more than this
- I’m successful on paper but something still feels off
- I don’t know what I want anymore
- I keep making the same patterns in relationships, work, money
That’s the territory. That’s where coaching works.
Now available: ‘Get Out of Your Own Way — A System for Living’. Right here. Where you are. Listen to part one — as a gift to get fully started — or get all 5 sessions (and bonus session and workbook) at GOYOW. Enjoy!
ShoutOut Health 