The Working Mums Podcast

Podcast Ep #63 - Coaching vs. Counselling vs. Mentoring

• Nicky Bevan

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Feeling confused about whether you need a coach, counsellor, or mentor? You're not alone. The boundaries between these support systems often blur, leaving many wondering which path might best serve their growth journey.

Counselling and therapy shine when addressing past events or current traumas. They operate on the premise that the event itself is the problem—a powerful framework when you're struggling with unprocessed experiences. In contrast, coaching approaches difficulties differently, suggesting it's not the event but your thoughts about it that create your reality. This distinction offers tremendous freedom: while you can't change the past, you absolutely can transform how you think about it.

Hypnotherapy serves as a gentle introduction to mind management, especially valuable for those experiencing high anxiety or seeking to change specific habits. Meanwhile, mentoring provides direct advice from someone who's already walked your path successfully—telling you exactly what to do based on their experience. This directive approach works wonderfully in business contexts but may not build your self-trust muscles in the same way coaching does.

Life coaching is perhaps the most misunderstood practice. Unlike sports coaches who instruct specific techniques, life coaches don't dictate how you should live. Instead, we build your emotional resilience and mind management skills, helping you access your own inner wisdom to create the future you desire. While we might discuss the past, we won't let you remain trapped retelling the same stories that keep you stuck.

What matters most? Finding someone whose energy resonates with you on a level that transcends credentials or methodologies. Have conversations with different practitioners, notice how you feel in their presence, and trust yourself to recognize the right fit. Ready to explore how coaching might support your journey? Let's have a conversation—no pressure, just possibility.

You can also watch this episode on YouTube with Captions - https://www.youtube.com/@TheWorkingMumsLifeCoach

If you'd like to have a chat about how I can help you further, please don't hesitate to click here & book a time with me, I'd love to meet you.

You can also follow me on IG @NickyBevan_LifeCoach

Speaker 1:

Welcome, welcome, welcome to this week's podcast where I would like to tell you this week all about the difference between coaching, counselling, mentoring. So I hear this quite a lot and people sometimes come to me and they're like I'm not really sure if I maybe need counselling or therapy or whether I need a mentor for my business. So I just thought it'd be really good to do an episode on my definition of the difference between the three things, because there is a difference. Now, this is my opinion. This is not fact. If you want to know more details about either one of those three things, go and chat to a counselor, go and chat to a therapist, go and chat to a mentor, go and chat to more coaches and see who resonates most with you. Because here's what I really believe Regardless of which route you choose to get support from, you have to resonate with that person that you're talking to on an energetic level. And I'm not saying you might be able to articulate that. You will just like their energy, you will just like them. You'll just be like oh, there's something about them I like. That, I think, is the most important part. But let me tell you what I consider to be the difference. So let me start with counselling or therapy. Start with counselling or therapy.

Speaker 1:

Generally, counselling and therapies are based on the past and for me, counselling and therapies assume that or imply that the event is the problem. Now, counseling or any sort of talking therapy would be very, very powerful for you. If there is a past event or maybe even it's currently happening and you're perceiving a trauma from it, that would probably be therapy and counselling. I think it's incredibly powerful to go and get help in whatever way you do it, and there is absolutely a place for counselling and for therapies, especially if there is a situation that you're struggling to deal with, whether it's past or current. So that's kind of my definition of counselling. The only reason the only thing I have against counselling in the long term is that, like I said, it implies that the event is the problem versus what I do, and it's your thoughts about the event that are the problem, and to me that's the best news ever, because you can change your thoughts at a time when you can't change an event necessarily.

Speaker 1:

So, under the banner of counselling and therapy, there is also hypnotherapy and solution-focused hypnotherapy. I am not a therapist and I'm not a counsellor, so, like I said please, if you're curious about any of these, go and find a counsellor or a therapist or a hypnotherapist or solution-focused hypnotherapist to talk to. So hypnosis, whether it's solution-focused or not, is about going to that subconscious, deeper level. So I feel this is really brilliant. It's a much softer introduction to learning your mind management. You are always in control of you, so even at a sub-level, a subconscious level, you have control over that. But it can be for me it's a bit of a soft, maybe a soft introduction, especially if anxiety is really high.

Speaker 1:

It might be that solution-focused hypnotherapy or hypnotherapy is the right path for you to take. It might be the right support that you need, and we all know the benefits of people that want, that want to stop smoking. They have hypnotherapy and then they're able to stop smoking. It also happens that if you're really, if you are really hooked on to not changing, the hypnotherapy either solution focused or not won't change because you have to want to change. So it doesn't matter which support you, because you have to want to change. So it doesn't matter which support you receive. You have to want to change, otherwise nothing's going to work for you. It does have to start with you, regardless of the solution that you go for.

Speaker 1:

So, then, mentoring if you are in a business, mentoring is more of advice. So, working with a mentor, they have probably done what you've done, they've been successful at doing what you want to do and they will give you advice. They will tell you what to do and how to do it. That, to me, is mentoring, again, brilliant. If you are really stuck in your business and you're just like or maybe even a life scenario, you're like I just want someone to tell me what to do, maybe a mentor is what you need. I would always argue why do you need someone else to tell you what to do, especially from a life perspective? Because you are your expert. But I do see the benefit in this in the workplace, like if you're building a business. So I have taken advice from my coach, who's also a mentor, and she her advice. Actually, she's like Nikki, I think you should start a podcast. So off I went and I started this podcast. So, um, that can be incredibly powerful, especially if someone has already done what you want to do. Um, so that, so a mentor is someone who is going to tell you what you need to do.

Speaker 1:

Coaching, I think, is a little bit. Life coaching, I should say, is a little bit misunderstood, because if you went to a swimming coach, they are going to tell you how to get better at swimming. If you go to a running coach, they're going to tell you how to get better at running and they might tell you how to improve your technique. As a life coach, I don't tell you how to run your life. I don't tell you what's right for you. You know that help you do is learn how to manage your mind and manage your emotions so that you start actually taking action towards the life that you want to live.

Speaker 1:

So for me, in my way of life coaching and there are many different ways of coaching so please, if you're thinking about hiring a coach, go and talk to some to see how they do it. The way that I do it is, I build up your self-trust. I build up together, we build up that self-confidence, that emotional resilience, so that you trust what you know is right for you, what you know is right for you. I don't know what that is, but you do so. Coaching is going to question, it's going to explore, it's going to look at your belief systems and see if they are helping you now, because they probably helped you get to this place or this point in your life. Are they going to get you to the next place? And if they are great, you might not need a coach. Keep doing what you're doing. But if they're not, you get to change that. You get to change that dialogue. Now there are some counselors and therapists who will do that as well.

Speaker 1:

So just because someone's a counsellor, it might not be that they don't ever talk about the future. This is why it really comes down to who you resonate most with, and I feel like life coaching is more based on the future. I do talk about the past with my clients, but I do not allow them to keep telling the same story over and over again, because the past is gone and how you feel about the past today is based on your thinking about it today. You can change your thinking today at a point when you can't change the past today is based on your thinking about it today. You can change your thinking today at a point when you can't change the past. Same with the future. The future hasn't happened yet.

Speaker 1:

The only reason we get anxious is because of our thoughts about the future. We can change our thoughts or we can just stop believing that they're true, because our brain has 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts a day. That part of our brain does not speak the truth. It does not accurately predict the future, but it does like to tell us a story, and the only reason we have an emotion when we hear that story is because we believe that story to be true, positively or negatively. So if I were to sum up the difference, counseling is based on the past and assumes that the event is the problem, which is very powerful if you haven't dealt with an event in your life.

Speaker 1:

Mentoring is someone telling you how to, what to do and giving you advice. Life coaching is building your emotional and mind resilience based on the future, who you want to be for the rest of your life. You will know which one you feel is right for you. You may have even had counselling. You may have even had solution-focused hypnotherapy and if you're not quite where you want to be, it might be that a life coach or a mentor is appropriate.

Speaker 1:

My biggest advice, like I've said, is have a chat to some of the people. Have a chat to a counsellor, have a chat to a psychotherapist, have a chat to a mentor. Have a chat to a solution focused a therapist. Have a chat to a mentor. Have a chat to a solution-focused hypnotherapist.

Speaker 1:

Of course, we are all going to think that our solution is the right one, because that's why we do what we do. We all are passionate about it, which is why you have to go with your gut instinct on what's right for you and how you feel about the person that you're talking to, and there is no right or wrong on that. You just get to decide what's right for you. So I hope this kind of clarifies a little bit about the difference. In my opinion, if you want to explore life coaching or you're curious about how I might be able to support you and help you grow into who you want to be, then let's have a conversation, let's have a chat. The link to book that is below in my notes there's never, ever any pressure or obligation to buy, but you're going to learn something about yourself even in just that conversation that we have together. Have the most amazing week and I'll speak to you again next week. Bye.