"Life coach" is an unprotected title. Anyone may use it, today, having read nothing. That is worth knowing before you spend money, and it is why this article spends as much time on how to avoid a bad one as on what a good one does.
The difference between coaching and therapy
The simplest useful version: therapy tends to work on what happened to you; coaching tends to work on what you do next.
A therapist is a trained clinician who can work with mental illness, trauma and long-standing psychological patterns. The work often goes backwards to understand the present. It is a regulated profession with a qualification behind it.
A coach works with a functioning person who is stuck on something specific and wants to move. The work runs forwards: what do you want, what is in the way, what will you do about it, and did you do it.
The overlap is real and the boundary is not always clean. But the distinction that matters in practice is this: a coach is not qualified to treat mental illness, and a good one will tell you so and refer you on.
When coaching is the right choice
A decision you keep circling. Leave the job or stay. End it or work at it. Move country or commit to this one. You have all the information and cannot make the call.
A transition. New job, new city, new baby, divorce, retirement. Not a disorder, but genuinely destabilising, and it helps to have someone thinking alongside you.
A pattern you can see and cannot break. You always take on too much. You never ask for what you want. You self-sabotage at the same point every time. You can name it and still do it.
A goal you keep not starting. Structure and accountability are much of what coaching provides, and they are not trivial.
Something you cannot say out loud anywhere else. For many people — particularly in a small city with overlapping social circles — that is most of the value. A room with no stake in the outcome.
When you need a therapist instead
Please read this part properly.
If you are experiencing persistent low mood, hopelessness, loss of interest in things you used to enjoy, significant changes in sleep or appetite, panic attacks, intrusive memories, or any thoughts of harming yourself — see a doctor or a therapist. Not a coach.
Also therapy rather than coaching for: trauma, grief that is not moving, addiction, eating disorders, and relationship patterns that trace clearly to childhood.
A coach working outside their competence can do real harm, most commonly by treating a clinical problem as a motivation problem — which adds a layer of personal failure to something that was never about effort.
If you are in crisis, this is not the article you need. Contact a doctor or a local crisis line today.
What a session actually looks like
Usually an hour, in person or by video, one to one.
The first session is mostly mapping: what brought you, what you have tried, what you want to be different, and what you want to work on. A good coach spends most of this listening and will be direct about whether they are the right person for it.
Subsequent sessions have a rhythm. What has happened since last time, what you did and did not do and what was interesting about that, then the substance of the session — which is largely questions.
The questions are the method. Not advice. A coach who spends the hour telling you what they would do is not coaching you, they are talking about themselves. The work is in being asked something you have carefully avoided asking yourself, and then sitting in the silence afterwards.
Sessions typically end with something concrete to do before next time. Small enough to actually happen.
Most people work in blocks — six to ten sessions, weekly or fortnightly — rather than open-endedly.
Choosing one
Ask about training and ask specifically. Which programme, how long, was it accredited by a recognised body such as the ICF or EMCC. "I did a course" is not an answer. A serious coach will answer this happily and in detail.
Ask what they do not work with. The single best question. A coach who says "trauma, addiction and clinical depression — I refer those on" has told you they know where their edge is. A coach who says they can help with anything has told you something worse.
Ask about supervision. Good coaches take their own work to someone else regularly. It is a strong signal.
Have a first conversation before committing. Most offer a short introductory call free. Use it, and notice whether you feel listened to or sold to.
Notice the pressure. Anyone pushing a twelve-session package on the first call, using scarcity, or implying that hesitating proves you are afraid of change, is doing sales rather than coaching. Leave.
Warning signs
- Guarantees of specific outcomes
- Language that pathologises doubt — "resistance", "you are not ready to be helped"
- Claims to treat anxiety, depression or trauma without clinical qualifications
- Discouraging you from seeing a doctor or therapist
- Very large upfront payments
- No confidentiality agreement or clarity about it
- Working with you well past the point where progress has stopped
That last one is subtle and common. A good coach will say the work is done. Ongoing revenue is not a reason to keep someone in a chair.
What it costs, and what to expect
In Beirut, roughly $60 to $120 a session, with wide variation. A block of six is a common commitment.
Progress usually looks like a decision made, a conversation finally had, a boundary held, a project started. It rarely looks dramatic, and much of the movement happens between sessions rather than in them.
If nothing has shifted after four or five sessions, say so directly. A good coach welcomes that conversation and will either change the approach or tell you honestly that you need something else.
One thing you can do today
Write down the decision or pattern you have been circling for longest. One sentence.
Then write the reason you have not resolved it. Be honest rather than reasonable.
Most people find the second sentence is the actual subject, and it is rarely what they thought they would be bringing. That gap is the thing worth taking to a first session — or, if what surfaces is heavier than a decision, to a therapist.