As a life coach I often also consult and sometimes mentor. A lot of people do not know the difference so I thought I would give a brief explanation, from my perspective.
Life Coach
A Life Coach will lead you from where you are now to where you want to go. Skilled questioning will guide and facilitate you to the answers/outcomes you are seeking. A skilled life coach will also be well rounded and have skills to bring about change in your life. Whether these skills are neuro linguistic programming, clinical hypnotherapy, acceptance commitment therapy or one of the many other therapeutic skill that when used by someone appropriately trained, can assist with fast change work for their client. Part of their role is to support and motivate you, whilst holding you accountable.
Consultant
A consultant is all about giving expert advice. I believe they must first be skilled in the area for which they are consulting. Think about the area of your life or business that you are seeking advice on, and assess what skills you would like that person to have. Do you want someone telling you how to build a multi-million dollar business if they have not achieved this success themselves? Or someone advising you on how best to incorporate your business if they have never done this?
Mentor
A mentor is someone, who in my opinion gives of their time and personal experience freely and openly. It is generally about advising from personal experience, and training from the knowledge and skills that they have. When you take on the role of a mentor, there should be no holds barred you should give of your knowledge and expertise freely.
I hope the above lends some clarity to these roles for you. Truth be told a good Life Coach also needs to consult, but they should be very aware of their limitations in terms of areas of expertise.
Generally people don’t know that they need Life Coaching until something is not going well in their life. Where are you at today? Are you living the live you dreamed and intended? Or are you just settling? No one should settle, we all deserve a rich and meaningful life.
Deb
