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Coach or Couch?! 3 questions to ask yourself, before choosing therapy or coaching.




Did you know that less than 1% of successful people consider themselves truly self made?

(Images credit: Forbes 100 Most influential women of 2022)

The most accomplished, high-achievers tend to attribute their success and ability to overcome adversity to the help, support and guidance they received from others. Sometimes that help and support is a loved one, like our parents or a significant other, or it’s a mentor, a coach, a therapist, or a counselor. We are all human- and we all need help or support at some point or another in our lives.



So how do you know whether you should seek help from a therapist or a coach?


Well- let's get straight to the depressing news first!


Therapy fails over 70% of the time. This is according to a Therapist, Peter Lavine in his book, The Body Keeps the Score. And a study completed by Columbia University revealed that on average less than 15% of people complete most online courses or programs!


Why do we fail so hard at getting better?

Great New’s It’s all your fault! Ok just kidding- but you are doing it wrong.


First of all - I believe that therapy most often fails because people go into therapy with the wrong expectation. Therapy is not a magic “fix all my problems pill.” Also, it’s common for people to be “sold” a coaching program that wasn’t a really good fit for them, because of good marketing, not good business, even if it offers the solution we think they are seeking. In both cases, we fail to achieve our outcome, because we believe that someone else holds the secret handbook to happiness or has the secret sauce that will make us all better.


Now for the part that isn’t your fault, but might still be your problem: Not all therapists are created equally and might not be the right fit for you, either because of their background and beliefs, their processes or their education and specialties. Similarly, many coaching programs are taught by really smart and accomplished people that are really great at doing the things they teach, but aren’t great at meeting the needs of the people they are teaching.


So, if we know that we need help, but both options suck- how the hell are you supposed to get better at anything and do more than Just survive?! So how do you know if you should choose therapy or a coach when you are struggling?


To answer that we are going to ask ourselves 3 questions.


Q1. Do you want a casual relationship or a serious relationship ?


When you’re trying to decide between Coach or Couch- Think about it like casual dating or A committed relationship. Casual dating is seeing each other maybe once a week getting caught up and just seeing how things are going. Whereas a serious relationship on the other hand has common goals and knows where it's going- and both people are actively committed to the outcome.


Therapy is, for most people, a casual relationship (even if you think your therapist is your best friend).


You can effectively have one relationship with your therapist... you're not friends. She is strictly there on a clinical level and her job first and foremost is to ensure that you aren't planning on hurting yourself or others. After that- her main objective is to act like the bumpers in kiddy bowling... and you are the ball. She is just there to help make sure you don't end up in the gutter. (I know a lot of therapists will argue with me on this one and I welcome the discussion- however I will explain this in more detail in Q2!)


A serious relationship is much more committed. Most coaches are not mental health professionals (usually) and the ones who are - have typically left the clinical setting and prefer coaching because they are more fulfilled by the results they are getting for their clients, and they can be much more hands on in getting you results. (Also your coach is allowed to say hi to you in public. ;)


Now, before it sounds like I am throwing therapy as a whole under the bus... I want to give a few reasons why therapy may be the right choice.


Which brings me to Q2. Is what you are experiencing a problem or a circumstance?


Problems are obstacles in your way of achieving your goals. They are the things that you feel like are holding you back. You might even be thinking to yourself “If I could just learn more, earn more, do something differently, then I could finally have, do, or be that amazing thing.”


Circumstances, on the other hand, are things we cannot change. They are just the way things are. They are things that are outside of our control and without a time machine, literal magic or transmuting into an alternate universe, are not going to change... no matter how crappy we feel about them.


If you answered option A : It's a problem - well, great news! That means there is a solution, even if you don't know what that solution is, how to get it, or even what it looks like on the other side. Problems are solvable and it's one of the main jobs of a coach to help you not only discover the solution, but also help you overcome the obstacles and reach your goals so that you can do better.


If you answered Option B: It’s Circumstance- Therapy might be the right place to start. Therapy is a great tool to help you feel better about the things you cannot change. Things like grieving the loss of a loved one, a diagnosis of a terminal illness, or addressing anger or other feelings about a parent for example. Because no matter how hard we try we can't change who our parents are, we can't bring back people from the dead, and we haven't figured out how to cure all things yet. So most often the best and sometimes only thing we can do is to simply try to FEEL better about the things we cannot change. This is definitely a primary objective of therapy- to help you feel better.


Now, this is often where people make the wrong choice. People often turn to their therapist hoping for great advice to solve their problems, and they turn to their coaches or mentors to help them feel better about things beyond their control. While you might get some sympathy from a coach and a nugget of advice from your therapist- it's unlikely to turn out the way you hoped.


You see, therapists don't give advice. At least in the U.S. they technically aren't supposed to. They are bound by laws and restricted by liability insurance and ethics committees and cannot actually tell you what to do. They can offer suggestions and will usually present them in terms of options- where you make the ultimate choice and absolve them of liability.


Coaches are not therapists and they aren't lawyers either. If you hire a coach, their primary objective is to help you get results- they may sympathize or even empathize with the struggles and the pains you are experiencing most likely because they were once standing in your shoes, however their job is to get you results, not give you hugs.


And the last question you should ask yourself before choosing a coach or a therapist is:


Q3: What do I want?!


If you have an answer to that question: Awesome- you are light years ahead of most people! Now find a coach who specializes in that thing- and get it done!


If your answer isI don't know what I want, but I just want to stop feeling like crap!” Find a therapist to help you figure out what you do want. People often make the mistake of confusing their pain with their goals. What I mean by this is that “getting out of pain” isn’t really a goal, it’s actually one of the motivations to achieving our goals. This is often where people end up in the wrong coaching program because poking someone in their pain points is considered ‘good marketing,’ but in my experience this often leads to bad business, because it mis-matches the wrong coaches with the right clients.


If you answered - “I don't know what I want, but I know I want something different than the same old problems-”seek out coaches or mentors who have overcome the same problem you are facing and gain clarity on what is possible after overcoming those problems. Then hire a coach who specializes in the results you want, and whose methods align with your values and needs.


Now here comes a little more tough love.

If you don't know what you want, all you can do is worry about how you feel about the problem. But once you do know what you want- how you feel about it becomes almost irrelevant. Because how you are feeling about a problem will virtually disappear once you know your outcome and begin working towards that outcome.


You can either be focused on the problem or be focused on the solution, and for my obligatory cheesy quote of the week: “You have eyes in the front of your head to see where you are going, not where you have been.” When you shift your focus to where you want to go, and not the pain that you are in, a funny thing happens: when you feel good about the solution and you remain focused on that, it will change how you feel about the problem, because the things we don't focus on disappear.


Ok so to wrap this up in a nutshell:


  • Therapy is designed to help you feel better;

Coaching is designed to help you get results…

  • Getting out of pain is not a goal,

It’s a motivation to achieve our goals.

  • The first step is figuring out what you really want,

Then finding the right help to get you there!


So at this point you might be thinking - well sh!!!!!!t- I feel like crap and maybe that's why I'm not achieving my goals...and you might be thinking you need to get your mental health shizz together before you can try to launch your business, or try to grow to the next level or have, do or be anything... and since therapy has failed you and 70% of the rest of the population- you might feel like you're basically f*ked... but don't worry - I've got your back - next week I will share with you: Why we FAIL so hard at Success: The real reason you aren’t achieving your goals.



So don't forget to subscribe so I can deliver that right to your inbox!


See ya then!

XOXO

~Arci Grey,

Survivor Success Coach


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