Life coaching is a relatively new profession, so you might be wondering, “Do I need a life coach or a therapist?” Is there a difference between life coach vs therapist?

Life Coach vs Therapist

Therapists are licensed health care professionals that help you transition from survival to normal living. Therapists are called when you have depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts. They help you get to the middle. The Middle: a place where no medical necessity for therapy because there is not a diagnosable condition. They deal with diagnosis, pathology, and treatment.

A life coach, on the other hand, takes you from the Middle to infinity. From normal to full thriving. You see a life coach when you have a lack of clarity. Or big dreams and lack of action. When you feel stuck and want someone who’s been there before to show you the way.

Let’s look into it a little deeper.

Therapy

Therapy focuses on healing the past by employing various scientifically proven methods such as Art Therapy and EMDR. It is performed by licensed health professionals that diagnose your condition and attempt to treat it. There are various techniques you can learn in therapy, such as cognitive reframing and mindfulness skills. Therapy is also past-focused, trying to gain insight and clarity into how your past affects you today through psychoanalysis, and healing past traumatic experiences.

Compare it to Physical Health

It can help comparing the two to physical health. If you’re sick in bed and have a hard time functioning a doctor = therapist might be more appropriate. Once you’re healthy and feeling functional and you want to achieve more, you call a personal trainer = life coach. Someone to help you become sexy af, a beast in your own right.

Life Coaching

Life coaching focuses on personal development. On growth, excellence, and achievement. Life coaching does not focus on pathology or treatment, but rather on actualizing our potential. In other words, taking our potential and making it material.

Furthermore, when you work with a life coach, you will be future oriented. You will focus on your goals and how to achieve them. Understanding how you got here is important, but you won’t get bogged down in over-analyzing the past.

The ultimate goals of coaching are inner peace, happiness, expression, connection, and achievement. Anything, really, that makes life worth living for you. Your life coach should get out of that area where you are comfortable to the one where all the magic happens. Are you here to live life go by or live it?

Life coaching is great for when you want a no bullshit best friend who will actually keep you accountable until you reach your goals. Someone who can see past your bullshit, envision your full potential, and make you do what you don’t want to do, but will ultimately be good for you. Just like a real (sports) coach.

“With a life coach, you might work on discovering your passions, strategizing a path to achieving them, and building the positive mindset that will empower you to achieve them,” source: Zencare.

How to Pick a Life Coach

The beautiful things about life coaching is that “anyone” can be one. That usually means people who have gone through similar problems and overcome them, decide to share their knowledge with others and help them achieve their goals. You should choose someone that inspires you and motivates you to become a better, grander version of yourself. It might even help if you choose someone that triggers you. Someone that possesses a quality that you would like for yourself, but don’t think it would be possible for you to achieve.

Why I Love Life Coaching

Coaching is effective. It focuses on results. It varies. Every coach has a different approach. Every session can look different. Maybe you need to break through your fear of singing. Maybe we need to go deeper into your subconscious. The tools and approaches are limitless.

What I love about coaching is that is very action oriented. Instead of focusing too much on why something happened, we focus on how you can achieve what you want to achieve. It’s guaranteed to make you uncomfortable. If that includes going into the past and releasing something, that’s great, but we don’t get bogged down with the details. We face the fear and move through it.

Finally, there is no cap on how amazing you can become. You can always be more present, make more money, and dress even better. When you think you’ve reached a comfortable level, meet someone who’s doing 10x that. This is not promoting burnout, but condemning stagnation.

Conclusion

“Consider therapy if you want to heal or get help with a mental health concern; try life coaching if you need help getting “unstuck” or realizing a fuller potential,” source: Zencare.

The Thing to Remember

You are your best life coach. You know exactly what you need to do to become happy. Sometimes you need to surround yourself with people who already have it, so your path can be easier.

No one can do it for you. But by investing in yourself and surrounding yourself with badasses, you can get there much faster.

I hope this answered your life coach vs therapist question!