Coaching or Therapy
Why Choose Coaching
People travel through time every day. We look back on the past. We imagine the future. Past and future come together in the present. At least that is how it is supposed to work.
Clients often seek therapy and coaching assistance when their personal past weighs too heavily on their ability to live their life with a forward looking orientation. How do you choose between a course of therapy or embarking on a coaching experience? Ask yourself: to move forward do you sense a need to focus on understanding the past, or do you sense you have a handle on that and are ready to focus on actively making change. Both have enormous value. In fact, the Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, said:
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.
In other words, therapy often emphasizes building a foundation of understanding of what brought you to this point in life. How did I end up with this partner or spouse? Why didn’t I recognize the signs of trouble that were, according to others, so clearly brewing? Coaching, on the other hand, assumes that there are many factors that brought you to this point, and coaching picks up there and strives to help you move forward. Coaching assumes you have the core skills to move ahead and assists you in putting those skills and personal resources into active practice in your daily life.
There is much overlap between coaching and therapy. Both have value in forging a new stage of life that is fulfilling and rewarding. My extensive training in therapy increases the effectiveness of the coaching services that I offer. But simply put, there are times when three key features of coaching focus more directly on what you currently need and may make it the right choice for you at this point in your life. Those key features are:
Skill-based: You, like everyone else, have skills for surviving and thriving in life. Coaching work focuses on accessing and applying those personal skills to help you address more actively what you are faced with.
Action-oriented: Understanding “why” a struggle persists and “where” it came from may be less relevant than “how” you are going to make decisions and act. Coaching involves an action orientation. Coaching takes you from “where you are” and helps you to move from contemplation into generation - generation of decisions and action steps that have a direct impact on changing your personal circumstances.
Future-focused: None of us comes to our present circumstances except through the powerful and enduring influence of the past. That does not mean, however, that you must first understand the past in order to move forward. Let me be clear: sometimes failing to learning from the past condemns us to keep repeating past patterns. However, it is just as true that many situations benefit from looking at where you want to go more than where you came from, or how you got here. Coaching primarily adopts a future-focused orientation that is well suited for many partners at the crossroads of their relationship.
If a coaching process is what you are seeking, reach out and we’ll help you launch the next stage of your life.