00:00 

Hey there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 141, "Coaching and Counseling: What's the Difference?" Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:22 

Alright, hello there, my friends. Happy to have you here today. I am glad to be here with you. Thank you for joining me. Just a little side personal note, my daughter gets home from her mission tomorrow and I am beyond giddy. I have missed her so much. She's so much fun and just excited to have her back. She has been in the Lansing, Michigan Mission for the last six months. She started off in Ecuador a year and a half ago and then had an intermission here at home for a few months over the summer and then went back out to Michigan and has adored Michigan and what's going on there. So she's had a great time and has loved it so much. So I'm getting this ready so that I'm done with my podcast for the week and I can just focus on spending time with her and I'm excited about that. 

01:15 

So this morning while I was exercising with my friends, we started having a discussion, and I'll go into this a little bit later on, but we were talking about why life coaching is so important in the world right now and where 30 or 40 years ago it wasn't so much. So what has changed that makes life coaching such an important thing? We're going to talk more about why that topic came up, but I think that our world is changing so much. Just as a hundred years ago we didn't really have gyms and places for people to go work out, people didn't really plan exercise time because life required so much physical engagement as it was in order to survive. If I wanted chicken for dinner I had to go catch chicken, then I had to chop off its head, then I had to pluck all the feathers. I mean it was just such a physical feat just to live a normal life that we didn't really need gyms, but as our lives have become more and more sedentary we find that we need to schedule exercise time to keep our physical bodies healthy. 

02:27 

And I think, as per our discussion this morning, as our world has gotten more and more complicated, things are not so black and white as they used to be. It's much more challenging to always know what the right choices are and what's going on and how to move forward, and we don't often see the things that we need to. And this is why I think life coaching is becoming such an important part of our culture and why so many people are looking for a good life coach and so many people are also moving into the profession of life coaching because just like physical trainers and exercising places and gyms it's it's becoming a very important part of our society. 

03:14 

So I wanted to talk today as, after we had that discussion, I thought, you know, what I want to talk a little bit about... coaching and counseling or coaching and therapy because that's probably a question that I get quite often. People are very comfortable with counseling therapists. That's been around for quite a while, although you go back a hundred years ago, not quite so much, right? It wasn't so mainstream as it is now, but people are comfortable with it. They know what it is, they don't know what coaching is so much and how it's different. So I want to talk a little bit about that today. 

03:51 

So, therapy is very often more past-focused, very often they will go into situations that happen in your childhood or in your younger years and discuss those traumas that happen. And coaching, I am just dying today with this coaching and counseling words together...counseling, bear with me on this one, I don't know why it's taking my brain out today, counseling and therapy often use past issues to explain our current problems or our current issues to figure out why we're struggling, why we're having such a tough time managing what's going on right now. And if we have had trauma in our lives at any level this can have a very lasting impact in our whole lives and it can be very important for us to go to see a counselor or a therapist in order for us to be able to move on. We need a place where we can open up that wound and explore it and figure out what happens. That's very important. I have friends who are counselors and they do amazing work. I have been to a counselor. I have sent some of my children to counselors. I am a believer in counseling. I think that there are things that need to be healed, that need to be explored, that need to be understood in order for us to be able to move on. It's been very healing. 

05:29 

I know that over time, though, as the trauma from the past starts to heal and as we start to come to terms with that trauma, we need to be able to move on. I have had friends who have been to counseling for years. It's been very helpful, but over time it stops to be so effective and then they don't really know how to move forward. They don't really know what else to do. And so many people find that working with a coach provides the movement that they're looking for and it creates changes in their life in a much shorter amount of time. So where counseling spends a lot of time going over the past, retelling the story over and over and over without really moving forward into the future, coaching is more future-focused, more how to move into the future, how to create the future that you want. 

06:25 

When I was married, I remember one counselor that we went to and every week for about the six weeks we went before I was like "yeah, no, this isn't working for me." This particular counselor every week just had us tell the same grievances every single week and I just after four weeks, I'm like "this is not doing anything," and then a couple more weeks of the same thing and I was like "yeah, I'm not going back." This particular counselor was not helping us to move forward. We were just telling the same stories every week. So with coaching, one thing that I am drawn to and that I love so much is it is a process of letting go of the past, making peace with the past, and having a future focus that allows our brain to reprogram itself for a different reality. If we're constantly focusing on the past, we continue to create what the past created. We have the same thoughts now that we were having in the past when that's all we're focused on. But focusing on the future helps the brain to create something different to actually move toward creating the future that we're thinking about. 

07:42 

So I want to talk about some of the similarities and differences between some other similarities and differences. So one kind of therapy that is closest, probably most similar, to coaching is CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy. And this requires a lot of thinking and behavior processing and problem solving. So one way that therapy is different than coaching is that it is often used to address psychological disorders. So if a person is non-functioning, or sometimes what we will call sub-functioning, the goal of counseling is to move them into a functioning place. Counseling is diagnosing a problem to be solved, getting the client to a place of regular functioning. So an example that I've used often in analogy is if you can't get out of bed, you need a counselor. If you can get out of bed but then you're a little lost and can't really quite figure out how to move forward the way that you want to, that's a great time for a coach. 

08:55 

So the big difference between counseling and coaching is where you are starting. Counseling starts clients when they are sub-functioning or under-functioning. Coaching takes a client when they are functioning and helps them move to the next level. So for me, the people that I work with, my clients, are all doing pretty good. They're usually fairly happy, but they're often unsettled, and they find themselves settling for a life that they don't really want. And they're not really knowing how to move forward. They want more, but they don't know how to get it. So that's kind of a difference there. 

09:42 

Another difference: therapists and counselors are regulated. It's a licensed profession. Oftentimes they cannot practice outside of the state that they're licensed in. They also take insurance, and they work with people who often have mild or severe mental disorders. So some differences between all of that and coaching is that life coaching is unregulated, which means we don't have someone telling us exactly how things need to happen, which also means that I can work with people across the world. And I have. I've had clients from all over the world, actually. And so I can do that. I do not take insurance. Insurance does not currently recognize life coaching as a health benefit that they will cover. So I think it's a beautiful thing that life coaching is unregulated, because it gives us the freedom to work with our clients in a way that they need it more. But it also creates a huge responsibility for us as life coaches to monitor ourselves. We have to be very aware of the ethical decisions we are making because nobody is monitoring those. We have to look at what we provide. We have to provide appropriate professionalism and boundaries because we have to regulate that for ourselves. 

11:09 

So I found a quote from Tony Robbins, and most of you have probably heard of Tony Robbins. He's probably one of the first really well-known very successful life coaches. And here's some things that he said on his website about what life coaching is. He says, "the fundamentals of life coaching are what distinguish it from therapy. Life coaches do not diagnose while therapists determine illnesses and pathology so they can be clinically treated. Therapists analyze their clients' past as a tool  for understanding present behaviors, whereas life coaches simply identify and describe current problematic behaviors so the client can work to modify them. A life coach would be able to offer guidance by clarifying and achieving personal and professional goals, creating business plans, working to improve communication skills, achieving financial independence and security, achieving a work-life balance, starting a new business, or growing a current business. A therapist, on the other hand, focuses their conversation on ways to recover from past traumas, explore why past relationships have been destructive, work through depression or anxiety that affect your ability to function at home or work, and survive a divorce or loss of a loved one." 

12:29 

So, the question comes down to do you need therapy or coaching? What do we need? Well, the question that I would ask is, have you ever told someone the story of your abuse or of your trauma? And were you able to release the shame? Did it increase your awareness of what was going on? If the past is still holding you hostage because you cannot let go of what happened in the past, you most likely need therapy or counseling. The people who most benefit from coaching have often worked with a therapist for a long time, but they can't quite get over the past. They're still bitter and resentful about it. They feel victimized. They're still hating themselves for what happened. They have taken time with a therapist to open the wound. They've looked at it. They've explored it, and they're ready to move on, but they don't know how. They don't know how to let go of the bitterness, the resentfulness. They don't know how to stop hating themselves and to learn to start loving themselves. This is where coaching is brilliant and so good at helping. 

13:46 

So, I did find another quote that I think speaks really well to the differences between coaching and counseling. So this is from a man named Bill Cole and he is known as a leading authority on sports psychology. And this is what he says, "how therapists and coaches differ. Keeping in mind that contrasting lists such as these can be overly sweeping and not entirely explanatory of the subtleties that exist, here are some of the differences between coaching and therapy. Coaching is an educational, discovery-based process of human potential. Therapy is based on the medical model that says people have psychiatric maladies that need to be repaired. Coaching focuses on self-exploration, self-knowledge, professional development, performance enhancement, and better self-management. Therapy seeks to heal emotional wounds. Coaching takes clients to the highest levels of performance and life satisfaction. Therapy seeks to bring clients from a dysfunctional place to a healthy functioning level. Coaching rarely asks about your childhood or family life. Therapy continuously explores early childhood, family, and relationship issues. Coaching uses the terms 'blockages' and 'obstructions' to denote what needs to be removed. Therapy uses the term 'pathology' to describe the patient's issues." 

15:14 

Continuing on, this is something else that I love that he says, "Coaching assumes a co-equal partnership between coach and client, and therapy assumes the therapist to be more of the expert and in control. Coaching asks, 'what is next?' And therapy asks, why? Coaching helps clients design their life. Therapy resolves issues. You can see that coaching essentially assumes that the client is okay and is full of potential, whereas therapy assumes the client is sick or dysfunctional and needs to heal them so they can function normally," okay? 

15:55 

So one of the things that I love that I do, and he brought this word up twice in that quote, is the word "potential." As a coach, I help clients move toward developing their potential, tapping into their potential, moving into a better space. I feel like I'm in a really good place, probably the best place of my life, and I benefit from coaching every single week. It helps me to see what is next, what's coming, what do I want to have come, how do I get there, how do I manage my mind, how do I create the self-awareness that I need to create in order to make the changes that I want to make, in order to clean up my life and become what I want to become. 

16:43 

So let me give you a sports analogy kind of to help you understand the different roles between a client, and a coach and a counselor. Alright, so let's just use soccer, because my kids all played soccer, so I'm really familiar with that. So the player would be you. I'm just gonna say that it's you. I would be the coach. The doctor would be the counselor, the team doctor, or the team physical therapist. I don't know, whatever they've got. They're on the sideline, okay? So if a player gets hurt, they don't need the coach. They need the doctor. They need someone who can get the player healed so they can get back into the game. So just as a counselor helps with unresolved issues or trauma, they can't function well in the game in normal life. They may be helping with depression or mental illness or an inability to show up for daily tasks, et cetera. Just as the doctor  helps the player with broken bones or with stretched muscles, they need physical therapy, all of those kinds of things. That's what a doctor does to get the player back onto the field. But when the player is on the field, who the player needs is the coach. They're functioning, they're on the field, but they are not seeing the whole field. They tend to be blind to what is happening because the player is often too close to the action. 

18:17 

So I got to see Les Mis twice in London, two different visits to London. And I had two very different experiences. The first time we saw it, we were up in the balcony, first row, so we had an unobstructed view of the entire stage. It was amazing. Because we were far enough away, we could see the entire stage at one time. And because of that, I could see what was happening on far right and far left at the same time. And my vision could take both of those in. The second time that I got to see Les Mis, we got some tickets third row, right in the center, which was spectacular as well. I mean, we could see the spit coming from their mouths. We could tell the different actors who were playing multiple parts. It was pretty amazing. However, I was so close to the action that the only thing I could really see going on on the stage was the person that I was looking at right that second. The person that was singing was the person I was looking at. I was missing all of the other dancing and things going on in the stage because I was just too close. 

19:28 

And this is how a coach works for you. Oftentimes, when we are in the game, we're just too close. We cannot see what else is going on in the field because we're right in the thick of it. So a coach standing on the sideline is able to see the whole picture. And as a coach, I'm not emotionally involved. So it's much more clear to me to be able to see what's going on. The coach helps the player to see their blind spots, to focus on their strengths and to manage their weaknesses, to best prepare for the game, to implement practice during a game, to help them see what plays they can use that are going to be most effective. So like a sports coach, a life coach helps you really to become the star of your own game, to be functioning at your highest level within the game by helping you see those blind spots, see your strengths and weaknesses, implement things as you go along. 

20:32 

So if you are non-functioning or sub-functioning, definitely counseling is the option. But if you are functioning but you're still suffering, you're still struggling or you're feeling stagnant, coaching is an incredible option to help you move forward. It's when you need another perspective, when you need help developing the tools to be resilient or self-aware, to be growing and progressing, rather than staying stagnant and stuck. Coaching is needed now more than ever. 

21:08 

And this comes back to the discussion that I alluded to at the very beginning that we were having this morning at exercise. We were talking about how the world used to be more black and white. This stemmed from we were listening to a coaching call and the lady was asking for help with understanding her daughter who was transgender and wanted to start using hormones. Her daughter was 15 and she wanted to start using hormones so that she could change into having more of male tendencies. And we had such a great discussion and talking about how would we do with that as a parent? How would we handle that? And how do we do it in a loving and a kind way? And how do we do it in a very responsible way? And how would we allow our child to be themselves and to move into the person that they want to be but also manage that with our values and the things that we feel strongly about? And such a great discussion. I don't know that there's any one right answer and I think that this is probably one reason why we are counseled so much lately. If you notice the last general conferences, probably three or four of them have talked so heavily on personal revelation because these concepts that are coming up in our life are complex and there is no one right answer. 

22:39 

And I think if we go back 100 years ago, things, even when I was a child, I go back 40 years ago, 30 years ago, life was so much more black and white. It seemed so much easier to know what was right and what was wrong. And now it's just so much more complicated, so much gray area that we just don't always know how to move forward. And we need help seeing and processing like the coach does on the side. The coach can help us see things that we may not be seeing and to help us process what's going on. And coaching offers a very safe place to discuss all the things. When we go into coaching, I am trained as a coach to create a very safe space for my clients to be able to talk about whatever they want. To be very non judgmental of whatever they're going through because, gee, we're all going through something. It just doesn't really matter. This is the point of coaching is that every one of us is stuck in places where we don't want to be sometimes. So, non judgmental, being very unconditionally loving, but also not emotionally involved in the circumstance in the same way that  you are. When you're emotionally involved, we're too close. That's like being on row three of the theater, right? We're just too close to see it for what we need to see it as. 

24:05 

So as a life coach, specifically, I market to middle-aged women, Christian women, LDS women, although I have coached men, I have coached teenagers, I have coached young moms, I've coached them all and I love it all. But as a life coach, I help you become aware of your blind spots. I help you explore your weaknesses and your strengths. I help you see things from a new perspective. As a coach, I help you define your values. I help you discover your desires and your potential. I help you move forward into your future and take responsibility for your life and stop blaming others. This is the beauty of coaching. Do I love counseling? Absolutely. I have benefited from counseling in my own life. I have seen people I love benefit from counseling. It has such an important role in our society. 

25:02 

And I also believe that coaching has a very important role in helping us to navigate this world that is changing so quickly. A world where, just as we didn't used to need to go to the gym and have a physical exercise regime, now we do because our lifestyles have changed, I really honestly believe that our lives have changed and gotten so much more complicated with all of the issues and how the world is right now and the challenges we have in marrying up our choices with our values and our desires. We just need coaching more and more. I benefit from it on a regular basis. And I hope that you are benefiting from this podcast and the things that we talk about on this podcast that help you to hopefully manage your stuff and move into functioning at a higher level that you want to. 

26:05 

And if you're struggling with it, this is what I'm here for. I would love to do a free consult with you. We can talk about how coaching can help you move from just functioning, just surviving, being stagnant, maybe even a little bit stuck, into moving into a better version of yourself, moving forward, get that momentum moving in your life again that may have slowed way down or even stopped. It's what coaching does, it's what I love to do, and I'm good at it, my friends. So get in touch with me if you feel this is something that you need, okay? And that is gonna do it for us today. Growing up is the bomb. I love it so much. I love moving into this space in middle age where pieces are fitting together, where life is coming together in a way that is more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. Okay, so if you would like some personal help from me, you can go to tanyahale.com. You can schedule your free 30 minute consult and we can chat and discuss what's going on. And as always, if this podcast is helping you, please share this with people. Leave a review if you can. If we're going to change the world, if we're going to one person at a time help us to be more emotionally healthy and prepared, this is a great way to get started on it. So thank you for sharing. Thank you for being here today and I hope this was really helpful in helping you understand the difference between coaching and counseling. Okay, have an awesome day. I will talk to you next week. Bye. 

27:50 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it works.