5 Life-Changing Ways Having A Life Coach Is Different Than Having A Therapist

You have been considering life coaching because you have heard that it can change your life. You have might have been in therapy for years and, while it has helped you very much, you know that you are still stuck in many ways.

So now you are considering life coaching and you want to know more. But, before you do, you want to know...what is a life coach?

Let me help!

Here are 5 life-changing ways that life coaching is different from therapy:

1. If therapy is like archeology, life coaching is like architecture.

A wise person once told me that therapy is like archeology. You dig deep into your history and try to sort through what you find to figure yourself out.

In life coaching, one takes what one already has — the stuff learned from therapy and the realities that are your life today — and build on that. You learn how to live fully with all that you carry with you, to shed what you can, and to move forward confidently.

While therapy and life coaching both have their benefits, with life coaching you can be sure that you will be doing more than just talking. You will be defining and taking radical, exciting, and fun steps to change your life and your future, right away.

2. In life coaching, you will learn to identify exactly what it is that you want.

The thing about life is that we know when something is missing when we aren’t happy or fulfilled. The key to change is identifying what exactly is that missing thing.

One of my clients knew that she just wasn’t happy in her marriage. Her husband worked hard, they didn’t argue, and he was a good father. But, she just wasn’t satisfied.

We talked it through and she realized that what was missing was the thing that she needed most to feel loved — communication. Simply talking about life and stuff and issues. Just talking.

Once we identified what she needed, we could make a plan for how to get it.

3. In life coaching, we create a step-by-step plan to get what you want.

Once we identified that my client needed more communication in her life, we addressed how she could get it.

It wasn’t so simple for my client to just ask for it. She wanted her husband to be the one who initiated it. We talked about whether he had the capacity to do to initiate. Some people just don’t. After some thought, she realized that he probably didn’t and that she was going to have to make the first move.

She decided, after some conversation with me, that she would ask that they could schedule in some time every day to talk and to put it on the calendar. If it was on the calendar, he would initiate, that she knew.

So that’s what she did. And their marriage improved. Sometimes, it’s just as easy as that.

4. In life coaching, you will be held accountable.

Accountability is an essential part of successful life coaching.

When my client sets a goal, I am there on the sidelines to make sure it happens. And how do I do that? Pestering and holding her accountable.

I had a client who decided she needed to walk 3 days a week. I knew that if she walked three days a week for 6 weeks, she would be able to make it a habit and therefore stick to it. She knew that in the past, she had dropped her goal within a week or so and she didn’t want to do that again.

So, for 6 weeks, I would text my client every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to see if she had walked. If she didn’t, she would have to confess to it. And she didn’t want to have to do that.

It’s been 6 months and my client is up to 4 days a week and she is feeling great. She says that having my encouragement and pestering made all the difference.

5. In life coaching, you will feel and see tangible results quickly.

Speedy results! This is the wonderful thing about life coaching. You don’t have to wait months and months to see change. Change happens as quickly as you want to make it happen. It relies almost exclusively on you and the work that you are willing to do.

When you identify issues and create goals to get you there, you can make things happen. And life coaching is the vehicle that enables you to do that! And fast!

Life coaching truly is life changing. And that life change can be yours right now if you reach out to a life coach (like me!) who can help you identify exactly what you want, help you create a path to get there and hold you accountable for making it happen.

Imagine what it would feel like to finally change that thing in your life that is holding you back.

You can do it!

Mitzi Bockmann is a New York City-based Certified Life Coach. Want to change your life with life coaching? Contact her for help.