Common Questions

Coaches are professionals who help you achieve personal or professional goals. While approaches to coaching vary, most focus on personal empowerment, motivation, and strategies to define and reach your dreams.

Coaching is a unique process that gives you the tools and accountability to get where you want to go. Coaching can be a way to overcome obstacles that held you back in the past, to achieve the future you want. It relies on a coach being willing and able to point out patterns that may not be apparent to you, and create systems of accountability. The best coaches are not experts in your field; they are not giving you the answers but are holding up a mirror and listening for you to uncover the answers and path for yourself. 

Coaching has become wildly popular and widespread as people discover its power. There are all kinds of coaches (career, life, executive, etc.) and the similarity among them is that sometimes we need to get out of our own heads, and talk to someone who isn’t a family member, friend, or boss in order to have someone truly listen, manage their own emotions and reactions to what you’re sharing, and be solely focused on helping you on your path to greatness.

Summarizing the difference between coaching and therapy can be tricky, as there are many modalities and styles of both therapy and coaching. The major difference between therapy and coaching is the focus of the work: therapy focuses on mental health and emotional healing, while coaching focuses on setting and achieving goals. Therapists are trained mental health professionals who are in the regulated field of healthcare and require licensure. Coaches do not have mental health training and are not equipped to diagnose or treat mental health conditions unless they are also trained in that field. A key function therapists often include in their therapy work that is not coaching is analyzing their client’s past as a tool for understanding present behaviors. In other words, therapists focus more than coaches on “why” certain patterns occur. 

In contrast, coaching with me would focus on improving the “here and now” and looking forward. Coaching can help you get “unstuck” in order to take action to get the results you want when what you need is someone to provide accountability and celebrate your wins along the road to success. Coaches identify and describe current behaviors, patterns, and themes that are not serving the client and may be holding them back from reaching their goals so the client can work to modify them. Coaches will absolutely be interested in their client's past and will want to know what life experiences have brought them to where they are today. That said, the goal in coaching is not necessarily to spend a lot of time going back to address, heal, or change the past. Instead, it’s just referenced. What you work on in coaching is: Where are you now and where do you want to be?

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Some clients work with both a therapist and a coach, or work with one or the other at different times of their lives. 

All coaching sessions take place on the phone. If you have a preference for video calls, I can accommodate that as well. We will find a date and time that works for you for each coaching session. I require 24-hour notice for a scheduling change. 

Coaching clients often enroll in short-term package sessions. My most common coaching engagement length is three months. After our complimentary intro call, where we assess whether this would be a good fit for you, we will set up a coaching package. Upon completion of the package, you can decide if you would like to continue working with me by signing up for an additional package or transition to as-needed sessions. 

• You want to get ‘unstuck’ and set goals you will actually achieve.

• You want to accelerate to the next step in your career.

• You want to stop and replace unhelpful habits. 

• You know that your inner critic keeps you from living your best life and you want to learn how to quiet or change that voice.

• You desire a life with purpose and meaning but do not know where to start.

• You feel confused about the next chapter in your life (i.e. struggling with career decisions and major life choices) and are trying to decide what would best serve you.

• You want to tap into your inner motivation for achieving a major goal.

• You want to hold yourself more accountable, whether in your personal or professional life.