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Coaching or therapy? This is a question that comes up for women that are trying to decide what kind of help they need. When should you hire a coach instead of a therapist? How does coaching and therapy differ? What should you expect in coaching? By the end of today’s episode, you will have clarity on which path to take to help you meet your goals.

Topics in this episode:

What is the difference between coaching and therapy?
When should you hire a coach? When should you hire a therapist?
How do the approaches differ?
What does life coaching with Rebecca look like?
Why is Rebecca’s coaching program 6 months?

Show Notes & References:

If you have established that coaching is the best approach for you to get unstuck and hit your goals, take the next step by booking a free breakthrough call. Click here to book: www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book.
Want ongoing support as a working mom? Sign up for the free 19-day audio series: How to be a present and connected mom. Each day you will receive an email with a downloadable audio of 5 minutes or less that will teach you a tool or strategy for being more present and in the moment. Click here to sign up and receive the first audio: https://www.ambitiousandbalanced.com/be-present-optin

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Transcript

Intro

Coaching or therapy? This is a big question that comes up for women that are trying to decide what kind of help they need.

And if you don't really know the difference between coaching and therapy, it could be really difficult to figure out.

When do you hire a therapist?
When do you hire a coach?
What is the goal of each?
How do they differ?

I'm answering all of these questions on today's podcast. I want you to get the help you need, so let me break it down for you as simply as I can so you can take the right next step. You ready? Let's get to it.

Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, the place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you're looking to feel more confident, decisive, and productive at both work and home, then this is the place for you. I'm your host, Rebecca Olson. Let's get to it.

Happy fall, my friends. I know I have said this on the podcast before, but when I write my podcasts, I actually dictate them into my phone, and I go for a walk.

And let me tell you, today, as I am writing this podcast, it is very chilly. I am wearing gloves. I am very bundled up. Even though the sun is out, the air is crisp, and it is cold. Fall has definitely come to my little neighborhood in California.

Do you need a therapist or a coach?

All right, today, what kind of help do you need? That is the question we're ultimately answering today. Do you need a therapist or a coach?

Now, this topic has actually been on my list to talk about for quite some time on the podcast, and now I just feel like it's really the right moment to talk about it, because I've been having conversations with friends, clients, potential clients, and it's clear that they want to invest in themselves.

They've reached the point where they know they need something, they know they just can't keep doing what they're doing, and they need help in some way, but they don't know what kind of help they need.

Do you need a coach, or do you need a therapist, or do you need something else entirely?

And this is actually a very important ethical principle for me as a coach. It's one of the essentials that is taught in coaching certifications when you start talking about the ethics of coaching, because ultimately, for me as a coach, I never want to work with a client that really needs a therapist instead.

Coaching and therapy are not the same things.

Now, I have done plenty of therapy in my life. I started therapy young as my parents separated, eventually divorced, and then as I struggled with that as I got older.

I have been in and out of therapy for sure in my life, and I'm a big proponent of therapy or just getting support or mental health, whatever it is you need in order to move forward.

The question is, what kind of help is that?

The differences between coaching and therapy.

So let me give you the way I like to think about and kind of talk about the differences between coaching and therapy. Now remember, I am not a licensed psychotherapist. This is just my opinion, my thoughts, my words.

If you were talking to a therapist, they would probably describe it in a different way. So just know that this is just coming from me.

Therapy tends to look backwards at your life in an effort to help you heal or move past your past.

And coaching cares a lot less about your past and where you've been. It simply kind of accepts that this is just where you are and who you are, and it focuses on where you want to be or who you want to be instead. So it's a much more future based process.

Therapy tends to be past based or backwards based. Coaching tends to be forward based or future based.

Again, super general way of thinking about it and what I like to tell my clients in our very first session together, as we're talking about what we're going to do in coaching and the process and their goals in coaching, all these things that we handle, in that very first session, one of the things I like to tell them is that it's not as if there are topics that are better suited for therapy and coaching - there are a few, and I'll, get into that in just a moment.

But generally speaking, it's not about what we talk about, it's about how we go about talking about it.

In coaching. We're not going to dive a lot into why you're feeling the way you're feeling, why you're experiencing what you're experiencing, where that comes from, in your history or your past.

We're not going to try to heal from any of your past or your experiences, but instead we're just going to have a very forward based coach approach to it, asking the question, here's where you are, where do you want to go from here, what do you want to do?

Acceptance and moving forward.

So we talk a lot about acceptance and then moving forward. It doesn't mean that we're not going to talk about your past experiences. Of course we are. You've had lots of experiences in your life that have brought you to this moment.

We're not really going to sit and dwell very long in your past. We're simply going to accept it and then talk about what you want to do from there.

It's not about the topic. It's really about the approach that you're looking for and the approach that you need in order to move forward.

Coaching or therapy?

So let's talk a little bit about what some of the reasons would be you might choose therapy over coaching.

If you've had some traumatic experiences in your past where maybe some of your lack of confidence or self doubt is stemming kind of from those experiences, that's probably a really good place for therapy.

Is there generational hurt or wounds that you need to sort of work through? That's also a place for therapy.

Is there some self healing that needs to take place? Maybe you've treated yourself in the past really poorly, and you need to go through some forgiveness of either yourself or others. Again, that's probably another good place for therapy.

Family dynamics, family wounds that you maybe haven't dealt with or healed from, that's a place for therapy.

Notice how a lot of these topics are all very past based. They're dealing with your history, where you can trace some of your current bad habits, if you will.

You could trace some of your burnout, or your lack of balance, or your lack of boundaries, your habits, your lack of confidence, where you could trace all of that back to some origin in your history.

Therapy is probably a good place to work through that and to heal from that.

Coaching is goal focused.

Now, let's talk about why you might choose a coach and the kinds of things you might do in coaching, the kind of goals you may have in coaching.

Because coaching is a very forward focused, goal focused process if you want to hit a goal, whether that is to increase confidence or stop overworking, or put up boundaries, or leave your job to do something else entirely, or to just figure out what you want to do in your career, or to get promoted, or to make more money, or to lose weight, or to stop some kind of habit that you have.

These are the perfect types of goals for hiring a coach.

Now, I've had a lot of clients that have had therapists, and they also hire me as a coach as well. And they talk about their past in therapy, and they talk about their future with me in coaching.

It's such a fabulous way to go about kind of getting the help that you need. Focusing on both past and future coaching is a space for taking action.

At the end of six months of working with me, I want you to have actually achieved whatever goals we've set for you to achieve in that time frame.

I want your life experience to actually feel different.

I want you to have a new job.
I want you to be asking for that promotion.
I want you to start making new, confident, decisive decisions.
I want you to have clear boundaries that you're holding to.
I want you to feel like you're controlling your time and your schedule and your energy.

Whatever it is, whatever reason you might come to coaching to me as a working mom, at the end of six months, I want you to actually be there.

In coaching together, over the course of our six months, we're constantly evaluating week by week, evaluating progress.

What do you need next in order to keep moving forward?

But you're not going to hit whatever goal you set. You're not going to hit that in six months by just talking to me. You have to actually do something different.

You have to take action in a different way.
You have to spend your time differently.
You have to be willing to think differently.
You have to feel differently.
You have to actually put up boundaries.
You have to actually do a time audit and look at where you're spending your time.
You have to journal potentially or dive into creating new thought patterns.

Coaching is a place where you are ready and willing to take action.

And this is a big difference that people talk about between coaching and therapy.

Again, I'm really generalizing here, but therapy can often feel like a lot of conversation. There's a lot of talking out things in coaching, but there's not necessarily a lot of doing things differently.

And at the end of every session in coaching, there's homework. There's something action focused to do. There's something that we agree on together, ultimately, that you are going to do between now and the next time that we talk.

It could be something very simple, like journaling or answering some reflection questions, or it could be something more formal, like a workbook or a worksheet.

You're not going to reach new goals by just thinking about them.

But there's always going to be something you're going to do because you're not going to reach new goals by just thinking about reaching new goals. You're going to have to actually do something to create those goals.

Now, there are some women that come to me that have done therapy in the past or even in the more recent past, and then they feel ready for coaching.

And I don't actually believe there's an order to it. I don't think you have to do therapy first and then coaching. I think that you could do them simultaneously. I think that you could do coaching first and then therapy.

I don't think there's a right or wrong to any of it, but it can feel sort of natural to want to dig into your past first and then move into coaching and to think about your future and to think about your goals.

So which do you really need, coaching or therapy?

“What do I want to get out of my time and my money investment?”

It really starts with the question, what do I want to get out of my time and my money investment in my mental health and well being?

It starts with having a sense of the goal and then from there determining what process, coaching or therapy is going to be best to get you there.

Are you looking to heal from something in your past?
Are you looking to change the dynamic between you and your partner?
Are you looking to be less triggered?
Are you looking to be more present?
Are you looking to change jobs?
Are you looking to end your negative self talk?
Are you looking to feel less like an imposter and more confident in yourself?
Are you looking to end comparison?
Are you looking to create new habits to move forward?

What is the goal? What's the end result you're looking for?

And then from there, decide which process would be best for you.

Just to be clear, because I know there's a lot of you out there and there's a lot of women that come to me looking potentially at coaching, but they come not knowing what they want.

And that actually becomes their goal in coaching, as we talk about it, to figure out what it is they want.

They have ideas, they have a lot of what if’s, they have a lot of back and forth. They have a lot of pros and cons lists, but they're having trouble making a confident decision about what they want and deciding what it is.

Deciding what the thing is that you want in your life, whether that is the career change, or to be a stay at home mom, or to start this business, or to be whatever it is.

Having a clear vision for yourself.

Whatever it is you're looking for, having a clear vision for yourself, that can be your goal in coaching or in therapy for that matter. That's a very common goal to have.

It's just a matter of deciding what kind of process do you need in order to figure it out.

So I just don't want you to get hung up on ‘I’m not really sure what my goal is.’ Figuring it out could be your goal.

The coaching process.

Now, if you've decided at this point that probably coaching is best. I just want to share with you a little bit about my process as a coach.

I work with my clients one on one for six months, and I choose six months for a reason. We spend about the first third of our time really understanding you. Your priorities, your value, your purpose, your life dreams.

Like I want you to know yourself, know what you want, feel clear about that, and really love yourself and what it is you want, probably in a way that you never have before.

Once we've done that in some way, this is going to feel a little bit more simultaneous. It's not really this and then this and then this. It's way more fluid than that.

But another big thing that we're going to do early on in coaching is we're going to understand your current habits and what's going on.

Why are you struggling with boundaries?
Why are you struggling with low confidence?
What are the thoughts that are going through your head that are creating that?
What are the behaviors that are associated to this?

And we spend time building awareness to what's going on into your habits, essentially, because if we don't really know what's going on, we can't fix it.

And then the latter half of our time, it's all about implementing, we understand who you are, what it is you want, what's getting in the way of you having all of that.

And now it's time to fix it. Now it's time to actually do something different.

It's time to actually put up boundaries.
It's time to actually advocate for yourself.
It's time to speak up in meetings.
It's time to feel confident.
It's time to prioritize yourself and put time for yourself in the calendar.

So the first three months, we do a lot of that digging into you, and then we start to really focus on changing habits and doing things differently.

And I want to make sure that I'm there for you during that implementation process. I don't want you to do all of this self discovery and then just kind of go, okay, now here are the tools. Go do it. I want to walk you through those tools.

I want to go through the trial and error of you figuring out actually how to have the boundaries, how to have the confidence, how to stop working at the times that you want, how to be present, how to end all of the negative chatter.

I want to actually be with you through that trial and error process because there is a bit of trial and error in that you're not just some cookie cutter that I can hand a process to, and then all of a sudden you go out and implement it, right.

Self discovery takes time.

It's really not quite that easy. I wish it was. I'm going to walk you through what works for you and what doesn't work for you. We're going to tweak the process all along the way, and that's why It takes about six months. It takes time to do the self discovery. Understand what's going on, learn the tools, and then implement.

And for everyone, this process, it starts with a breakthrough call. That's really where this process begins. It doesn't start when we begin coaching together. It starts right here on you booking this call.

On this call, what we're going to do is we're going to cast some vision over what it is you really want. What do you want to be different in your life? Why do you want that? Why is it so important to you? And if you don't know what that is?

Because again, a lot of people come and say, I don't know what I want, but what I know I want is not what I have. I just want something to be different.

But even with that, we'll spend some time digging deeper and actually spending some time putting some language to what it is you want. That starts right here on this breakthrough call.

Creating a plan to reach your goals.

And then we create a plan together for how we're going to get you to that vision. We're going to get you to those goals through coaching together.

And then at the end, we leave plenty of time where I answer all your questions and we really talk about the onboarding process of coaching if it feels like the right next step to us.

So the change you're looking for, it doesn't start when coaching starts. It starts when you book this call.

It starts right away. The moment that you schedule this call and say, I want to figure this out. My goals are important, my mental health is important. I don't want things to stay the same anymore. I don't want to stay stuck.

Scheduling this call is you saying to yourself that you're worth it and that your goals are worth it and that the life that you want is worth it.

It's such a huge moment where you take ownership and responsibility over what it is you want.

So if you've come to the end of this podcast and you've listened to me talk about coaching and therapy, and you really do think, or at least your hunch is to say that coaching is probably your next step and you're interested in working with me through my six month process, I would love the opportunity to connect with you.

It starts on this free call.

That's where it all begins, where the process of getting unstuck and taking ownership over what's next in your life begins.

I would love for you to take that opportunity. It's such an important, big step, and I'm here for you through all of it. You ready? Here's how you do it.

You go to www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book to first fill out a little form that's going to give me a sense of where you're at and what we're going to talk about in that breakthrough call. And then it will automatically send you to my calendar where you can schedule that call right away.

Working moms, I hope this has been helpful to you.

I hope if you've been asking this question, what do I really need? Do I need coaching? Do I need therapy? What do I need? I hope that this podcast has really helped break it down for you.

If you have any questions, by all means, please do reach out. Send me an email. I would love to connect with you on that. My email address is rebecca@rebeccaolsoncoaching.com

All right, working moms, stay warm during this chilly fall. And until next week, let's get to it.