Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AMA
Original poster

I'm an actual life coach AMA

55 replies

PhoenixRisen · 07/07/2018 22:18

I'm not a life coach that earns 6 figures a year.

Nor a struggling life coach that pretends to earn 6 figures a year.

I'm in the middle. I have a great part time non coaching freelance job that I love and still do coaching in my spare time when I can for pocket money.

You need to speak to me if you want the truth on the life coaching industry, or the business coaching industry.

I'm an awesome coach but won't offer to coach you. I actually want to give you the truth about it all.

OP posts:
HopelesslydevotedtoGu · 08/07/2018 12:21

Thanks for the answers.

I had coaching a few years ago, arranged and paid for by my employer (NHS). The coach worked in the same field as me and had trained as a coach for colleagues specifically, and the aim of the coaching was to discuss my workplace stress.

We did look at strategies for reducing workplace stress, but interestingly also spent lots of time discussing my life outside work. When I started coaching I would have said that my life outside work was fine, but actually we found lots of room for developing that and putting more time and attention into important parts of my personal life, to balance against all the attention I had been putting on work. Ultimately improving my life outside work reduced how stressed I was about work.

Is this typical for coaching, to end up shifting the focus from what the client originally consulted for?

Original poster
PhoenixRisen · 08/07/2018 19:36

I will be back on here later. Busy day.

OP posts:
Original poster
PhoenixRisen · 08/07/2018 19:37

Dorothy I answered your first question up thread:)

OP posts:
Original poster
PhoenixRisen · 08/07/2018 19:38

CBT and coaching use very similar tools. The difference is that a psychologist is better trained to pick at scars.

As a coach I avoid scars like the plague. I don't have the training to heal them.

OP posts:
Original poster
PhoenixRisen · 08/07/2018 19:40

HopelesslyDevoted.

Love that song.

Yes. Its very common especially in business contact for someone to come to me and say they need one thing but we end up ignoring that and looking at something a kind of layer below. Which may seem unrelated but end up solving or helping to solve the original problem.

OP posts:
Loopytiles · 08/07/2018 19:43

The responses from OP and a PP about the difference between counselling and coaching stereotype and show ignorance about counselling IMO.

leghairdontcare · 08/07/2018 19:45

How do you objectively measure the impact of your sessions?

Original poster
PhoenixRisen · 08/07/2018 19:45

OhMyGodTheyKilledKenny (Did they in the end?)

Where do I start?

I focus on mindset coaching. However just after I set up as a mindset coach the term caught on and 9 out of 10 enquiries were from MLM people.

These people are not coaches. MLM is not business.

If you are interested in more I am happy to pm you links to articles I have written on the subject.

It's not the naming of themselves as coach or the lack of qualifications that bothers me. Its the fact they don't coach. They sell and they sell lies.

If you are involved in the cause it's very possible we have crossed paths ;-)

OP posts:
Original poster
PhoenixRisen · 08/07/2018 19:46

loopy sorry that you think that.

I have been counsellors and CBT'd and also done several units of counselling training (though am not a qualified counsellor.)

Please put me right. I'm happy to learn.

OP posts:
Original poster
PhoenixRisen · 08/07/2018 19:48

leghair by setting end of session goals. They need to be achievable but stretch goals, nothing too easy.

I ask my clients to keep me updated between sessions. So I can help them along the way if needed.

OP posts:
leghairdontcare · 08/07/2018 19:50

But how do you know that you have contributed to them achieving those goals?

Loopytiles · 08/07/2018 19:51

Stating that counselling focuses on the past suggests ignorance of counselling, of which there are many types.

Original poster
PhoenixRisen · 08/07/2018 19:53

loopy i said counsellors deal with the past more than the present. You are trained to look at the past. I am trained to take it into consideration but always refer people with unresolved issues to counsellors or psychotherapists.

OP posts:
DorothyBastard · 08/07/2018 20:50

I’m not sure that you did answer my question Phoenix, as you seem to be referring to past-based counselling approaches such as psychoanalysis. There are a large number of counselling theories and approaches which are present (or here-and-now) focussed, such as many humanistic or behavioural approaches, or a theory such as gestalt. These approaches do not focus on the past but the present, and goal setting for example sounds extremely similar to CBT.

I’m still not sure I understand the difference between CBT and life coaching in this case, unless it’s just that life coaching has less of a theoretical basis, which perhaps leaves it more open to abuse and exploitation.

plus3 · 08/07/2018 20:57

Hi - I like/love my job in the NHS but have been doing it for 20yrs now in the same place. I feel like I should change but have no idea to what. Would life coaching help? Also how to I go about finding. A life coach I would get on with?

OhMyGodTheyKilledKenny · 08/07/2018 21:44

PhoenixRisen Re: MLMs, I'm not involved in the cause as such but have been in the anti MLM threads on here under various names.

Do you think your articles would be of interest on those threads?

Original poster
PhoenixRisen · 08/07/2018 22:21

OhMyGod

I've already contributed to the cause and the timeless vie parsley people know me

OP posts:
PaddyF0dder · 08/07/2018 22:23

Is there any scientific basis to your work?

Original poster
PhoenixRisen · 08/07/2018 22:24

Dorothy.

Life coaching is very much open to abuse. It really is. There are very very many cranks out there.

Anyone can be a coach.

Not everyone can be a counsellor or a psychologist.

There is a big difference.

OP posts:
Original poster
PhoenixRisen · 08/07/2018 22:31

Paddy.

Coaching isn't based on science. Whatever anyone says. Otherwise it would be a regulated therapy.

However I base my work on as much science as I can in theory and also base it on what works for me.

When I try out a new technique I let my client know (and they won't be paying for it).

Some of what we do is conventional science. But some is based on what scientists will call pseudo science.

OP posts:
Original poster
PhoenixRisen · 18/07/2018 10:34

I am asking for this to be deleted as someone has contacted me to let me know they have recognised me. Thanks everyone.

OP posts:
PerryMasonsFriend · 18/07/2018 12:32

How can you genuinely hold yourself out as being able to advise people on how to sort out their lives when you yourself work as a life coach?

I just don't get this as an industry at all. If I was going to take advice about how to run my life, I would only really respect it if it was someone who themselves had a completely sorted life and had achieved a great deal within their field.

Not some one poxing around at the bottom trying to tell other people what to.

Sorry if that sounds too full on but it is a question I have as I don't get it as an industry. Seems to me its full of charlatans taking money off the vulnerable who need help.

DieAntword · 18/07/2018 12:40

Do you ever tell people stuff they honestly couldn't have worked out themselves? Or are you mainly there for moral support?

dangerrabbit · 19/07/2018 00:01

How does your approach differ from solution-focused brief therapy?

Kotiik54 · 25/06/2021 15:14

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.