What’s the Difference Between Life Coaching and Therapy?
Life coaching and traditional therapy overlap A LOT! Both help you understand yourself better, make sense of past experiences/traumas, and give you space to process and grow.
They differ in that therapy tends to focus on the deeper work:
traumatic experiences from your childhood or conditions that limit the way you interact with the world.
And sometimes in therapy it can feel like you’re rehashing the same issues again and again, but not knowing how to make a change and without the accountability that a life coach can give you.
Life coaching is more about helping you unlock new skills,
taking the baby steps to master them, and having someone hold you accountable each step of the way.
Last night I had an odd dream, involving people refusing to leave a cabin in the woods, that I realized is the perfect analogy to describe life coaching, how it works, and what it can do for you.
My clients' thoughts have taken up residence in their head, like unwanted house guests that won’t take the hint and leave.
My clients try to ignore these thoughts that are often critical (what I call inner critic thoughts). Instead they focus on the things they have to do like feed their kids, go to work, and do laundry.
But their inner critic thoughts pile up like dirty dishes in the sink and eventually they get too rank, disgusting, and moldy to ignore.
The challenge is that they don’t know how to clean their metaphorical pile of dirty dishes.
They know they want clean dishes, but when they look at that pile they feel overwhelmed by the mess and give up on the task because they don’t know where to begin.
That’s where a life coach comes in!
You’re not born knowing how to wash dishes! Someone had to teach you.
How to make the water hot, show you how much soap to use, and demonstrate the best way to scrub a dirty dish. Those were skills that you learned. And life coaching is just like that.
That’s what life coaching is, identifying the dirty dishes in your life and learning how to process and put them away. So you can have a clean sink ALL the time.
When you work with me, I help you see that pile of dirty dishes that you’ve ignored for days, weeks, years and I teach you how to approach one dish at a time, so you can learn how hot to make the water, the right amount of soap, and the best way to scrub. And I stay with you until you feel confident to do it on your own.
If this analogy resonates with you we’re likely a good fit to work together.
If you’d like to learn more about working together, Book a Consultation Call. It’s free and just half an hour.
I see you for the intelligent, capable, and badass human that you are.
Let’s work together so you can learn how to trust yourself.
Take this simple step to clean your sink of inner critic thoughts and Book a Consultation Call Now, before your inner critic thoughts pile up and try to stop you again.
CLICK HERE to Book Your Complimentary Consultation Call
Kerstin Phillips is a Life Coach & Yoga Instructor, E-RYT 200 living in Berkeley, California with her daughter, husband, and kitty, Pesto.
She loves to journal, read, do all things yoga, and hike in Tilden.
Kerstin guides women and non-binary folx out from the shadows so they can embrace their true selves, feel confident in their decisions, and define their purpose, because everyone is valuable and no one deserves to be overlooked.
