What is a Coach, and Why Do You Need One?
“It’s about incubating development – creating an intentional environment within which you can safely explore any pre-existing stories, mentalities and patterns, and re-structure them for the life you want to create.”
If I’m being honest with you here, I never used to have that high an opinion of coaching. My only real exposure to the industry was the influencer – -turned lifestyle gurus – turned “life coaches” who handed out inspirational quotes more than actual transformations. If I’m being honest, I fell into the limiting behaviour of judging something I didn’t take the time to understand, and I assumed that it was just some expensive self-help fluff and goal setting that couldn’t possibly generate any real value in my life.
Then a friend of mine became a coach. Like, a real certified coach. I watched the transformation that occurred within her as she opened her life to possibility and began helping others walk through transformations of their own. I talked with her about what I wanted my own life to look like, but how I was unclear about how I would actually make it all happen. She held space for my own discovery, invoking curiosity and guiding me to see for myself what I truly valued. That clarity made it so much easier to make choices about the way I used my time, energy, and other personal resources – and walk intentionally toward what I wanted to see unfold in my story.
At that point, I was already passionate about intentional living and was mentoring and leading in some capacity. But all of a sudden, I saw how beautifully coaching enhanced that path, creating even more opportunities than I ever thought possible. Coaching helped me see my own “big picture,” and it was the catalyst that launched me toward living out my purpose.
If I’m being honest with you here, I never used to have that high an opinion of coaching. My only real exposure to the industry was the influencer – -turned lifestyle gurus – turned “life coaches” who handed out inspirational quotes more than actual transformations. If I’m being honest, I fell into the limiting behaviour of judging something I didn’t take the time to understand, and I assumed that it was just some expensive self-help fluff and goal setting that couldn’t possibly generate any real value in my life.
Then a friend of mine became a coach. Like, a real certified coach. I watched the transformation that occurred within her as she opened her life to possibility and began helping others walk through transformations of their own. I talked with her about what I wanted my own life to look like, but how I was unclear about how I would actually make it all happen. She held space for my own discovery, invoking curiosity and guiding me to see for myself what I truly valued. That clarity made it so much easier to make choices about the way I used my time, energy, and other personal resources – and walk intentionally toward what I wanted to see unfold in my story.
At that point, I was already passionate about intentional living and was mentoring and leading in some capacity. But all of a sudden, I saw how beautifully coaching enhanced that path, creating even more opportunities than I ever thought possible. Coaching helped me see my own “big picture,” and it was the catalyst that launched me toward living out my purpose.
The Edge of Chaos
Deeply embedded in the heart of every human is a desire for significance. I’ve met face to face with this desire more times than I can count – in myself, in others, and in the culture we live within. And yet, in our desperate pursuit of more, we find ourselves with full calendars and empty spirits. Simultaneously overwhelmed by all that life demands of us and underwhelmed by the results.
Something’s got to give.
The world we live in is marked by chaos, with ever-changing, unpredictable circumstances. And as the rate of change accelerates, we’re faced with the task of adapting to the world as it unfolds before us. Maybe you’ve found yourself falling victim to life’s circumstances a few times, allowing them to derail your dreams and set you on a course you never intended to travel. What we discover as we stand in the midst of life’s chaos is that we don’t live in a vacuum, our best efforts don’t seem to be enough, and with each failure, we lose a little more hope that we will ever actually reach the object of our dreams.
But to a coach, the edge of chaos is a place of opportunity, creativity, personal growth and proactive change. It’s a threshold, a place where every single one of us can cross over into a more authentic version of self – if we’re willing to take a step back and look at our circumstances from a different perspective.
And that, my friend, is where a coach comes in.
What is Coaching?
Coaching is, essentially, a facilitative profession that helps you clarify, balance, and direct your personal resources to create purposeful, sustainable transformation in your life. By helping you identify your authentic, innermost values and commitments (and separating those which are transitory or superficial), a coach helps guide you in building a foundation upon which you can create an action plan. It’s about incubating development – creating an intentional environment within which you can safely explore any pre-existing stories, mentalities and patterns, and re-structure them for the life you want to create.
And the coaching relationship sits at the core of this transformation process. In order for people to truly change, we need to undergo two foundational processes. We need to change the story we are telling ourselves, and we need to harmonize that story into our understanding of self. These processes, however, demand radical vulnerability, and the coaching relationship provides the safe space that is necessary to test out new stories and bring them to life.
Why vs. How
Imagine your actions are ranked on an axis of meaning. Asking the question ‘why’ moves you up, and ‘how’ moves you down. Neither one of these is inherently better or worse, but each serves a different purpose. When you ask why, you align yourself to that which is most meaningful to you, and you are reminded of the reason you started. ‘How’ begins looking for opportunities to realize our desires, without which we would never see any movement toward our goals.
This framework is most helpful when we’re stuck. When we know our “why” backwards and forwards but aren’t seeing growth or change, we need to start focusing on how. When we look up one day from executing one ‘how’ after another and realize we’re not sure why we’re actually doing it (or if it still means anything to us) – we need to look up and again ask ‘why’.
Moving up in the axis of this framework produces meaning and purpose while moving lower produces action. A coach’s job is to help you find a sustainable, productive balance between these two, and help you begin to recognize for yourself when you need to move up or down on the why/how axis.
What Coaching is Not
A coach is not responsible for your growth. The relationship is only truly effective if you come into the process ready and willing to be open, vulnerable, and committed to the work required. That may sound strange – that the person you’re paying to coach you isn’t actually responsible for your outcome. But it’s actually entirely for your benefit. A coach’s ethics and practice become compromised if the achievement of one particular goal becomes the way the coach measures success. It leads to a single-minded, unhealthy approach where your own core values become submissive to your performance outcome, which is entirely counter to the foundation of what coaching is. Ultimately, the coaching relationship is collaborative and artistic in nature, where the coach embraces the diversity between clients, is fully committed to presence, and helps you become more excited about moving forward and taking responsibility for your own outcomes.
* diagram is illustrative, not universally descriptive of each industry
As you can see from the diagram above, while there are absolutely overlapping qualities, coaching is its very own field of facilitative services. There are many different fields within this category that are valuable and can produce fantastic results – but depending on your starting point, the place you want to go, and the experience you want to have on the journey, knowing the differences is crucial.
Therapy
While there are many approaches to therapy, most traditional therapies (ex. psychotherapy) are primarily interested in why you’re unable to function as a mentally healthy, socially stable, whole person. They are concerned with helping you heal from the pain of your past (which is absolutely vital in some situations) and overcoming dysfunction and conflict. They are looking to see what in your past is creating a barrier to your learning and personal development. Other approaches to therapy such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Solution Focused Brief Therapy, and Narrative Therapy are more solution-oriented and hold more commonalities with coaching.
* Therapists are also licensed to diagnose illness or issue.
Mentoring
A mentor is someone who has been doing, for a considerable length of time, something you would like to do or has lived their life in such a way that makes you want to learn from them. While they fall somewhere in between the roles of coaches and consultants, mentors are still generally subject-specific. In a Forbes article defining the difference between mentoring and coaching, it states, “Mentors are successful people who share their hard-won wisdom to provide insight and guidance [into the] challenges along her journey. They typically function in a reactive capacity, responding to issues as they arise.” Perhaps the main difference between coaching and mentoring is that mentors very often provide advice, whereas pure coaching only provides the framework for the client to discover what needs to be done for themselves. There are absolutely coaching programs available that are a hybrid of coaching and other facilitative methods (My program Design Your Life is a combination program).
Consulting
A consultant is an expert. They’ve already done the thing you want to do, and they believe that they are able to help you duplicate their success by sharing their insight and wisdom from the lessons they’ve learned. They will often assess what you’ve been doing so far and provide feedback and an action plan for you to follow to achieve your desired outcome. Consultants generally function within a how-to framework. The relationship is often short-term.
Teaching / Training
Teachers and trainers have subject-specific knowledge that could potentially be useful tools as you work towards your goals. They do not necessarily provide advice (as a mentor or consultant would) or walk you through the discovery of how the information could be utilized (as a coach would). Teachers and trainers and primarily dedicated to the broadening of your understanding.
Q&A
Some time ago on my Instagram account, I asked what questions you have about coaching. I received so many great ones, and I’ve gathered a handful of them for you here. Of course, if you have any further questions regarding what coaching is, how a coach could support you as you create transformation in your life, or if I could be the right coach for you – send me an email (hello@ashleyvonschulman.com) and let’s connect.
What’s the difference between a life coach and a business/career coach?
I think that many people understand the context of coaching in the business sector, but are a little more unclear about what coaching can produce in their personal lives. The beautiful thing about coaching is that it can be applied to any area of your life. Your career, personal goals, relationships, character traits you want to grow in, learning opportunities and so much more. And beyond that, coaching addresses the stories, mindsets and patterns that we live with which, when examined and revitalized, can transfer into the way we show up in other areas that were not a direct element of the coaching experience. A business coach or executive coach may have previous experience in the business sector or work primarily with professions, but the foundations of coaching hold across all niches.
Is coaching regulated?
No. Anyone who wants to call themselves a coach can, and they’re truly not being dishonest in marketing themselves as such. As the industry grows, however, there are standardized bodies that aim to hold the profession to a higher standard so that clients know when they hire an accredited coach, it means a certain level of skill and training is in place. The International Coaching Federation is the gold standard of coaching, and coach training programs certified by the ICF must uphold a very high degree of training and ethics.
I am a certified coach through the Academy of Creative Coaching, an ICF accredited coach training program grounded in positive psychology.
What’s the Difference between coaching and therapy?
We’ve already covered the differences and similarities between coaching and therapy above. Both are extremely valuable and it’s likely that most people can highly benefit from both facilitative services in different seasons of life. If you feel like you have deep residual pain in your past that is making it impossible for you to move forward, therapy may be a great choice for you. However, if you feel like you need someone to enable your forward movement, getting a coach in your corner could be life-changing.
What made you want to become a coach?
I was coached. I was supported to see what was truly, deeply valuable to me – and what I wanted to create in my life, in my relationships, and in this world based on those values. Through coaching, I was able to clarify that one of my greatest purposes is to help individuals step into the call of their life and live as fully as possible. Part of that plays out in writing and teaching, but there was a facilitative component missing in the work that I was already doing. I was encouraged to explore coaching as a career path for myself, and determine whether or not it would support me in living in alignment with what I know I was created to do – empower and equip. After some searching, I discovered that it was such a natural direction for me to follow, and it did not subtract from the other passions I had. Instead, it enhanced and supported them, making my work even more valuable to the people who chose to partner with me.
Are there different kinds of coaching?
Yes. While all coaches trained by an ICF-certified coaching program are technically equipped to coach anyone through anything, most coaches have either a specialty or niche area where they tend to focus their work. Some of the main areas a coach may specialize in (though are not limited to) are:
Life Coach
Leadership Coach
Faith & Spirituality Coach
Executive Coach
Relationship Coach
Health/Wellness Coach
It’s usually pretty easy to recognize a coach’s focus and niche, and it’s an important consideration when finding a coach who’s the right fit for you.
Does coaching happen online or in-person?
It can be either or both. If you’re lucky enough to find a coach in your area that’s a great fit for you, meeting in-person is a great option that can help strengthen the relationship and accelerate trust. But thanks to technology, your location doesn’t have to be a limitation for you connecting with the coach you want to work with, and a transformative experience is in no way hindered by not meeting in-person.
Ready to Discover More?
The choice to invest in coaching is ultimately a choice to invest in the person you are becoming and the future you are building toward. What are indecision and lack of direction costing you? What could be possible if you were able to access your most authentic self and live from a place of integrity and values-aligned action?
If you don’t invest in your potential and take your personal development seriously, no one else will. It’s time to make it happen.
