What is life coaching?
Coaching is a future-facing, strengths-based, strategic partnership.
It is a lot like therapy, except that I cannot help you process specific past traumas, diagnose illnesses or prescribe drugs. I am, however, trauma informed (I worked at a women’s shelter AND took two courses on trauma-informed wellness strategies) though I am not a clinician. I have also had at least 25 years of my own therapy and coaching.
What are the differences among coaching, counseling and mentoring?
While all three terms involve guiding and supporting individuals, the key difference lies in their focus:
- Coaching aims to help individuals achieve specific goals through actionable strategies.
- Counseling focuses on addressing emotional and psychological issues often rooted in past trauma.
- Mentoring provides guidance and career development through sharing personal experience and expertise;
Essentially, coaching is future-oriented, counseling is past-focused, and mentoring leverages experience to guide future growth. It is normal in the coaching dyad for these lines to blur a bit; however, since coaching is concerned with wholeness and integrative wellness, all of you is safe to share, but YOU decide.
Coaching is based on the premise that we are radically social creatures, who do better together. Humans need trusted others to live and thrive. We need to be seen and heard, and receive unconditional positive regard.
And, reaching out for help is a brave, meaningful form of self-care.
For my clients, I offer an egalitarian relationship, where we partner to help you talk through, define, plan for, and meet goals and solve problems in any realm of your life: personal, familial, work-related, or communal. I will also help you anticipate barriers that may get in your way, and provide an accountability system (upon request).
Importantly, you take the lead in clarifying what you need and how to get there. Coaching assumes that you are already whole, competent and creative, but that you need a safe space with another human to lay it all out and find meaningful solutions. I do not operate with deficit assumptions.
Coaching professionals offer listening, attunement, and intentional questioning strategies to help you in a thoughtful, systematic and structured way to find confidence and clarity. It is A LOT of attuned, sustained listening by me.
As a life coach, I will assist you with self-reflection and help you work on habits, solve problems and design plans that we reveal through open, curious and non-judgmental inquiry followed by a realistic, doable plan, and accountability.
The goal is to get unstuck, all in a confidential, safe and compassionate space.
I follow the International Coaching Federations (ICF) ethical guidelines https://coachingfederation.org/ethics/code-of-ethics
including strict confidentiality. The core values of ICF professionals include professionalism, collaboration, humanity and equity. I am wholly aligned with these values.