Natasha Singh

Therapy looks for what’s wrong, coaching looks for what’s right.

The best way to explain how coaching is different from therapy, is that in coaching we look for what’s right, what are you strengths and what are the resources you already have that you can access. This is not a post on why one is better than the other. Both have their place and are valuable. The difference is that in coaching we are not looking for a fix, answers yes but the focus is not on what’s wrong but on what is possible. Which is why it is different from therapy.

Coaching is an invitation to shed what we are not and to dream what we can be. It is a place for facing our fears, our imagined limitations and finding our courage and will. A collaborative space where the coach reflects back your strengths, wishes and hopes. The relationship is one that allows for camaraderie, laughter as well as challenge. The coach is only an expert at asking the right questions which facilitate an enquiry or a shift in perspective. The answers lie in you, they emerge in response to the questions.

In a time where we lack true elders and mentors, coaching can provide a space to pause, reflect, clarify and move forward with renewed vision and vigour.

The greatest gift of coaching is clarity, about what you want and the right reasons for doing things. At the crux of it is the wisdom that comes from the heart, which always leads us to the right path and when we can put the head in service of it then we feel in alignment and on purpose.

“Coaching is a space to think out loud , things you would hesitate to admit, dreams you keep hidden and feelings you circumvent.”

What if what’s wrong with me is the wrong question? And the past is not to be healed from but grown out of? 

Allow me to explain, I believe we spend a lot of time trying to analyse and get over the past and what it didn’t give us versus looking forward to what we actually got from it and what we want to do with it going forward. How would your strengths have developed if not for the obstacles? Question is how to use the obstacles wisely to understand what it is asking of us? is it asking us to look for a new path, develop new abilities or dig deep to find the strength to push against it? If this makes sense to you then you will find the way I work interesting. What I find works most effectively on this path of curiosity is to take stock of what you have got from your experiences with biography work and then look to the future in coaching to envision what you want to use from it to get to a your desired growth, destination, goal or way of being.