---HELPFUL DEFINITIONS*

COACHING: Coaching is a one-to-one interactive relationship that helps people identify and accomplish their personal and professional goals faster than they could on their own. Currently there are two major branches of professional coaching – personal coaching and business coaching – but each is quickly gaining sub-specialties. Each division goes by various names. For example, personal coaching is also known as life coaching, success coaching, personal life coaching and professional coaching. Some of the more popular sub-specialties include spiritual coaching, relationship coaching, coactive coaching, Christian coaching, personal development coaching and career coaching, among others.

PERSONAL OR LIFE COACHING: Personal or Life Coaches usually work with a wide range of individuals on a host of intrapersonal and interpersonal issues, such as coping with a specific problem or crisis, focusing their energy, achieving their dreams, making career transitions, living a happier, more fulfilled life, overcoming conflict, enhancing their communication skills, specifying and achieving their life goals, and building better relationships, to name a few.

MENTORING: A mentor is defined: 1. as a wise and trusted counselor or teacher and/or 2. as an influential senior sponsor or supporter. There are three major ways mentoring differs from coaching. First, mentoring is usually free. Coaching is not. Second, mentoring is typically done on an informal and as-needed basis. Coaching is a formal relationship and uses a semi-structured format. Third, you probably don’t set up specific goals and measurable results as part of a mentoring relationship, but in coaching you do.

SELF-ACTUALIZATION: Self actualization is characterized by being solution-focused and possessing an appreciation for the fullness of life, concern for personal growth and development, and the ability to have peak experiences.

COUNSELING OR PSYCHOTHERAPY: The primary differences between coaching and counseling or therapy are the people who are served and the problems confronted. In counseling, the person is seen as broken, bruised, and in need of healing. In coaching people are viewed as creative, resourceful and whole. Typical problems most therapists deal with are depression, anxiety, and severe relationship difficulties. In coaching, we don’t fix broken people; we help healthy people perform at a higher level. One way to think of this is to imagine a scale starting at 0 and extending to both +10 and -10. If 0 is normal or average, however you define it, then counseling takes people who are at -10 and moves them closer to 0 – back to normalcy. Coaching starts with people who are at 0, or often at 4 or 5, and helps them move closer to +10.

 

*These definitions are from the book "Getting Started in Personal and Executive Coaching" by Stephen G. Fairley and Chris E. Stout