Life Coach or Counsellor?

One of the most common questions I am asked is what’s the difference between a Life Coach and a Counsellor?

As a qualified life coach, I am trained to work in the present and future tense focusing on identifying your goals, assessing any obstacles, behaviour patterns, problem solving and helping you to map out the steps to achieve them within a realistic framework personalised to you. Like all professionals, I have certain strengths which will vary with each life coach. Life coaches can often be attracted to this profession because of their own life skills which can be full of personal experiences of overcoming their own life events. Self-disclosure can be encouraged and seen as beneficial for the client to help them to identify, connect and have hope in the change process.

There are many different types of coaches ranging from relationship, financial, executive, business, spiritual, wellness and more. Understanding your personal needs will help you to connect with the right style of coach. The frequency of sessions will depend upon your goals and can range from six session onwards on a weekly basis and perhaps dropping to fortnightly and then monthly. It is a confidential setting that can be online or face to face which will often last for 50 minutes. Coaches vary in their approach as some are more directional than others and can use a range of blended coaching skills involving mentoring, teaching, and coaching skills. I adopt a person-centred approach with blended coaching skills which means I allow you to lead, and I will ask open ended questions to understand you more deeply and to evoke your own learning.

An integrative counsellor is trained in different models of approach and interventions which he or she can pick from to best suit the needs of the client. A counsellor is specialised in active listening and other important skills that will help the client to unpack their thoughts and feelings in a safe and confidential environment. Counsellors will help you to explore your internal processes in the present and past to see how they have shaped you into the person you are today with your different behaviour patterns, thoughts, and feelings. Counselling is nondirective and allows you to progress at your own pace. The most successful outcomes are again based upon the depth of relationship between the counsellor and client.

This is a simplistic view of the differences between life coaches and counsellors which I hope will help you to distinguish the main difference which in a nutshell are the tenses that the two professionals work within ie., the past or the future. It’s not to say that either won’t work in the past or future but depending on which service you opt for will affect where the main focus will be.

A life coach can be your personal cheerleader, somebody you are accountable to and a unique confidential, safe relationship where you can explore or discover your goals, dreams, destiny, developing increased self-awareness and a greater understanding of self.