Therapy or Coaching? It’s RESULTS That Count, Not Credentials!

I heard about a local psychologist who was referring to us online coaches as “charlatans” - people with no real credentials who take advantage for monetary gain.

Whilst there are some charlatans in the industry for sure, there are also many coaches justifiably charging a lot of money for their services.

I’m not knocking the work that psychologists do, nor their training. Like in every industry, there is brilliant and there is not so good or even dangerous. But you’ve got to get clear about what you want first and then look for the person that has a proven track record of getting that RESULT for clients AND who has their shit together.

That particular ‘coach dissing psychologist’ has many certificates and academic accomplishments but she struggles massively. If you take a step back, you realize that it doesn’t make sense. If that textbook approach truly worked… well, you can draw your own conclusion there. And I do realize that it’s all relative as deep trauma can be hard to heal.

I’m not judging her internal struggles. Life is damn hard and we all face adversity … but I’m proud that I am free from that ‘textbook’ kind of life and I have developed great tools to navigate the tough stuff. Plus I’ll never choose to get through something alone if it’s tough to overcome, I’m a firm believer that we are not supposed to do life and great things alone. Even if in many ways, I’m a loner and proud of it :-). Funny side-note that I was exchanging with a client last week about the social stigma that is attached to the word ‘loner’, but yet I see it as something to be proud of. There is a lot to be said for loving your own company. Life is all about perspective. It’s never the situations that cause our pain, it’s our perspective – the meaning we give them – that does.

Now back to coaching versus therapy – I’m actually not even a defender of the coaching industry in general. Some are excellent and some are questionable. I was pursuing a certification with a reputable coaching organization and then I watched a video from the CEO. She looked unhealthy, exhausted and full of jargon. I opted out of that path and instead followed an incredibly successful and largely tattooed coach, who lit up my soul. Not because I wanted to go out and get tons of tattoos, but because this was someone who knew how to live life on her terms. She had cracked the code and done it successfully. That’s so inspiring to me.

People pay her a lot of money because her energy says it all. She is clearly living proof of how to live an inspired life on her terms. The CEO of the other company was not.

It’s so much more refreshing to me than textbook and academic textbooks and an approach that is strongly backed by medication. I know that meds have their place, but I also know that there is tons that can be done in parallel if you really want to fight for yourself.

So back to why I believe I’m a much better option than a therapist - let’s just cut to the chase, lol.

The typical therapist is someone that you see once per week to talk to for an hour. It’s an hourly rate and compared to good coaching, it’s very affordable. It can be a wonderfully valuable weekly outlet if you are looking for someone to hold space for you whilst you process all the things that are going on in your life. It’s also good for getting a potential label put on behavior, like OCD for example, so that you can understand what it is and why you are behaving that way so that you can overcome it.

HOWEVER…. I also know that when we choose to live a lit-up life and go after a vision that lights us up, we thrive on the passion from that. As it develops, we experience less misery in our lives and are less put out by external drama because we are focused on the brave life and vision that we have chosen. I will go so far to say that I personally know of people that have come off all medication when they stopped conforming to societal expectations and chose to march wildly to the beat of their own drum instead. I’m not advocating this, but it’s what I’ve observed. And that’s an incredible RESULT to observe – again results beat credentials hands down.

Maybe us so called “charlatans” are wiser than first glance would suggest. We are generally better risk-takes and have more courage and you can’t put a price on courage.

Unregulated can be dangerous, I agree, but I love having the freedom to choose a business on my terms and to work in a way that I find to be very impactful to get the best results for clients.

The way I work with high-level clients is a zoom call once per week plus voice-memo and email support in between. I recently started with a client who wrote me a long summary of everything going on in her life. I love this. I don’t have to waste time in our sessions getting familiar with the back story. I can get a clearer picture faster of where the gaps are between where she is now and where she wants to be. I know that processing is an important part of any personal growth journey, but a client who is committed to journaling means that we can get through all that a lot faster. I love working fast and dynamic – RESULTS will be much better.

I was just thinking about this when a friend was sharing recently about challenges and I asked if her therapist was helping her though those. She said “a bit, but it’s slow”. She had been ill and had to cancel their last session and then the therapist was on two weeks’ vacation and didn’t have space until a week after so that is a month gap between sessions. It’s ridiculously slow and un-dynamic progress. I know that it depends on the motivation for seeing the therapist, but life is too short in my humble opinion to let a tap drip, when it’s possible to open the faucet and allow full power. I’m in near daily communication (except at the weekend) with my clients. I deeply want them to get the transformation they signed up for and a client who is as committed as I am is a match made in heaven! I don’t have issues with boundaries either. I know that sometimes there’s a lot of messaging at the start but it eases off once we find our flow.

Isn’t it so much more refreshing to work this way than via a measly weekly appointment where things are structured and “correct” and you can’t fully immerse yourself? For some people, that can feel safe, if you want to take it slow and measured. I get that, but that approach is not for me.. and probably not you if you are still reading this. You, like me, want to dive in, get your hands dirty and make progress FAST!

?Don’t you think that you and your life are worth that?

Whether you have a big dream that you finally want to pull the trigger on, you have a destructive habit that you desperately want to stop, you are looking for an intimate relationship or you simply crave a quiet mind that is at peace, no matter what external circumstances are going on – I can help catapult your progress FAST. I don’t make false claims and I’m not an addiction specialist for example, so if it’s a destructive habit that is addictive, there’s a good chance that I’ll recommend an addition recovery program in parallel, but what you’ll get from me is an inspired ass-kicking. I’ll have your back and I want your result. Results are what counts. Don’t ever hire anyone for their certifications, hire them for the RESULTS they get. Academic qualifications sometimes don’t prove much more beyond the fact that the person is capable of completing assignments and retaining textbook information. So don’t ask people what they are qualified at. Ask them what results they got in their own lives and for their clients. And then you decide how much that result is worth to you in financial terms. That’s a wise way to make your investment decisions for personal growth – not a % of your revenue, not what academic achievements they have - on what result you will get and what that is worth to you. The more of a stretch the financial investment is, the more likely you are to do the work to achieve the changes you want.

I’ll round this up with one of my favorite testimonials that I received from a client. Not a hint of a charlatan to be found here ;-).

"When I met Niamh, I thought I’d got to the end of the line. I’d tried everything that modern life dictates – therapists, counselors, medication, to name just three – but nothing truly worked. That is, nothing truly convinced me that I could be the person I wanted to be.

Luckily, Niamh saw through all this. Her trick is quite simple – to not let you trick yourself. In the gentlest way possible, she refuses to let you believe that you are unable to be the person you want to be, to do what you want to do, to let all your talent fully express itself. Before Niamh and I met, I never would have believed that I could earn a living as a freelancer, with a view to allowing myself the permission – and time – to write fiction, something that I have always wanted, but never dared to believe that I could do. Now I not only earn my living that way, but write every day too. That feeling of liberation is beyond compare!

Niamh practices what she preaches. Not for her the high-and-mighty (old-fashioned) teacherly approach of preaching to her ‘pupils’. No, she practices gratitude too (you should see her notebooks), and compassion and self-belief. She does not judge herself and she will not judge you either. She will, however, prod you in the right direction – sometimes remorselessly – and won’t be taken in by your old self that doesn’t want to change. You see, from the moment you meet her, Niamh will believe in you and what you want your life to become – it’s up to you to decide when to join her on that journey and believe in yourself too.”

I think you’ll agree that that was quite a RESULT!

Message me if you are serious about getting quite a result in your life too and you want my help.