The Ways a Life Coach Can Help Bolster Your Mental Health
Life coaching is the process in which credentialed professionals help people clarify their goals, identify challenges, and aid in creating strategies to overcome those challenges. Not only that, life coaches identify unique strengths, skills, and gifts to aid in achieving life-long changes. It is the goal of life coaching to help people improve their relationships, mental health, careers, and day to day lives.
A life coach facilitates change by digging deep into thinking patterns and obstacles, while providing the framework, accountability, and support to break past them.
At CTEDU, coaching is viewed as a collaborative and empowering process that encourages individuals to explore their potential and build the skills necessary to navigate life with confidence. By combining structured goal-setting techniques with evidence-informed coaching practices, individuals are able to better understand their motivations, behaviors, and personal values. This process creates opportunities for meaningful growth while supporting improved emotional well-being and stress management.
What is coaching for mental well-being?
Coaching for mental well-being focuses on enhancing emotional health and resilience. It involves guiding individuals to set personal goals, improve self-awareness, and develop coping strategies. By fostering a supportive environment, coaching helps clients navigate challenges, build confidence, and cultivate a positive mindset for overall mental wellness.
In many cases, coaching provides individuals with the structured space needed to reflect on their experiences and identify areas of improvement. This reflective process can help individuals better recognize patterns in their thinking and behavior, allowing them to develop healthier habits and more constructive responses to stress or adversity. Over time, these improvements contribute to greater emotional stability and a stronger sense of personal empowerment.
Who Should Consider Mental Health Coaching?
Mental health coaching can be a valuable support option for individuals seeking to improve their mental health, work on goal setting, and strengthen personal resilience. Those who want structured support but may not require clinical therapy could greatly benefit from the guidance of a mental health coach.
Mental health coaching may be particularly beneficial for individuals navigating periods of transition or personal growth and life changes. Career changes, academic pressures, relationship challenges, or major life decisions can all create stress that affects emotional well-being. Coaching offers individuals a constructive framework to work through these situations while maintaining focus on personal development and long-term goals.
However, it is important to note that there is a distinct difference between a life coach, and a counselor. A life coach is someone who partners with a person to inspire deep and critical thinking intended to maximize their personal and professional potential.
On the other hand, a counselor is someone whose purpose is to aid people in adjusting behaviors, thinking patterns, emotions and more, with specialized methods generated from established psychological principles. “Coaching focuses on visioning, success, the present, and moving into the future. Therapy emphasizes psychopathology, emotions, and the past in order to understand the present.”
So while there are distinct differences between a life coach and a counselor, there are still ways that life coaching can benefit an individual’s mental health, and CTEDU has compiled a list below, with examples.
Understanding this distinction helps individuals determine which type of support best aligns with their current needs. For many people, coaching can serve as an accessible starting point for developing healthier habits, improving self-awareness, and creating meaningful life direction.
Life Coaches Create Clarity
Most people have a vague, ambiguous knowledge of their goals and dreams. But often, those goals and dreams have no clear path, and this uncertainty breeds anxiety. Other people may struggle to discover their purpose in life, which leads to feeling hopeless, or that something is missing. All of these feelings can impact a person’s mental health. A life coach’s outside perspective allows their client to see things differently. They ask powerful questions to elicit insights to their goals and dreams, while also providing a framework to achieve their goals. According to Dr. Rose (2018), “Collaborative goal setting is a robust method of support for people with mental health issues.” Setting a goal is rarely sufficient to facilitate change, which is where a life coach comes in. Creating a collaborative environment to identify goal characteristics, set goals according to those characteristics, and create action plans for achieving goals is important for positive impacts on mental health.
For example, a client may come to a coach with vague notions of a goal to be promoted at work. This ambiguous desire without a clear path to obtain that goal, causes stress and anxiety in the client. A life coach will sit down with them to dig into the desire, and how they can create a structured, actionable path to achieving the goal of promotion, thereby reducing stress and anxiety.
In addition to providing clarity, the coaching process often helps individuals develop greater confidence in their decision-making abilities. By breaking larger goals into smaller, achievable steps, clients are able to see measurable progress over time. This sense of progress can significantly reduce feelings of uncertainty while reinforcing motivation and commitment.
Life Coaches Improve Wellbeing
Work, life, and even hobbies are demanding in different ways, and the struggle to feed and balance them all can take its toll. This toll can affect a person’s mental, physical, and emotional health. And when these areas suffer, so does everything else. A life coach is someone who steps in with a focus strictly on their client to determine opportunities for growth. Through this process, coaches can help clients identify the habits and behaviors causing their imbalance or declined wellbeing. Then, they work with their client to develop strategies for better habits to create a balanced, healthy lifestyle. In a study by Grant (2003), participants reported that life coaching reduced their levels of depression, anxiety, and stress, although mental health was not specifically targeted in the coaching.
In this case, a client may find that they are overworking themselves, and feeling overwhelmed in trying to balance time with their families and friends, while also participating in hobbies that make them happy. A life coach will help identify the behaviors that are causing them to overwork themselves, and help the client create a framework to change those habits to a more healthy and balanced way of approaching work, and life.
Over time, these adjustments can lead to improved overall life satisfaction. When individuals begin to prioritize balance and self-care alongside professional and personal responsibilities, they often experience greater energy, improved focus, and stronger relationships with those around them.
Life Coaches Enhance Optimism
CTEDU uses positive psychology to back all of its practices, something that reinforces positivity in the lives of people. According to Dr. Seligman (2007), “positive psychology is the study of positive emotion, of engagement, and of meaning, the three aspects that make sense out of the scientifically unwieldy notion of ‘‘happiness’’. By focusing on the five core aspects of positive psychology, hope, strength, happiness, strength, resilience and courage, life coaches can leverage these aspects in the lives of their clients to teach them how to change their perspective. With the scientific background of positive psychology, the wellbeing and quality of people’s lives are impacted with raised senses of optimism and gratitude. Which in turn, offers a significant shift in a positive outlook, and better mental health.
An example of this may be that a client feels as if they fail to speak up during meetings or in conversations, making them seem too quiet, or even disinterested. A life coach with the framework of positive psychology, can help them come to the realization that this means they are someone who listens well. They have deep understandings of situations, and pay close attention to others when they are speaking. Converting a negative perspective, to a positive one with a positive attribute and strength of the client.
Over time, this reframing of personal experiences can lead to greater emotional resilience. Individuals who learn to recognize their strengths and positive attributes often develop stronger self-esteem and a more constructive outlook when facing challenges.
Life Coaches Encourage Perseverance
Between occupational and life stressors, a person’s mental health is impacted often with symptoms of depression and anxiety. Perseverance is the ability to adapt to adverse conditions. This ability may reduce the negative impacts of stressors on mental health. There is a common myth that people assume the ability to persevere is something that one is born with, and simply has the ability to execute at will. But there is building evidence that perseverance is a skill that can be bolstered and trained. Life coaches endeavor to utilize specific tools and methods to bolster a person’s strengths and to better foster the qualities that aid them in persevering against life’s adversities.
When it comes to coaching, a client is encouraged to discover what aspects of their personality and behaviors have worked to help them face adversity in the past. Then, life coaches will address how to use those attributes to plan how to deal with challenges in the future, to foster perseverance and resilience.
Developing perseverance through coaching also helps individuals build confidence in their ability to overcome obstacles. As clients reflect on past successes and learn strategies for managing future difficulties, they begin to approach challenges with a stronger sense of capability and determination.
Life Coaches Shine Light on Strengths
Another aspect of life coaching that can positively impact mental health is the approach of strength based coaching. This approach places the person as an expert of their life, and focuses on the promotion of hope and self-awareness. This focus on their strengths, while simultaneously bolstering them can help to build wellbeing, perseverance, and better mental health. A life coach empowers clients to identify their strengths for themselves to help give them the skills and tools to achieve their goals.
For example, a coach will spend the time focusing on their client to help discover what their personal strengths are, and focus on them to consciously increase success and goal achievement. Weaknesses are not ignored, however; but the same idea applies. A life coach will empower a client to use identified strengths to manage their weaknesses and find ways to develop them into strengths as well.
By emphasizing strengths, individuals often gain a deeper understanding of their abilities and potential. This awareness can encourage greater self-confidence while reinforcing the idea that personal growth is both achievable and sustainable.
Coaching Mental Health Purposes and Goals
The purpose of mental health coaching is to empower individuals to take charge of their mental wellbeing by providing them with the tools and techniques needed to foster personal growth and resilience. Coaches work closely with clients to set clear, achievable goals that reflect their unique aspirations and challenges. By focusing on strengths and positive aspects, mental health coaching aims to cultivate a proactive mindset, enabling clients to navigate difficulties with confidence and optimism. Moreover, the goals of mental health coaching extend beyond mere problem-solving; they encompass enhancing self-awareness, improving emotional regulation, and instilling effective coping strategies and practical tools for everyday situations. This supportive relationship encourages consistency and accountability, helping clients to not only identify but also overcome barriers hindering their mental health and overall happiness. Ultimately, mental health coaching serves as a bridge towards sustained personal development, facilitating a transformative journey towards emotional well-being.
Within the CTEDU framework, these goals are supported by evidence-informed coaching methodologies that prioritize ethical practice, client empowerment, and ongoing personal development. This structured approach ensures that individuals receive guidance that is both supportive and aligned with recognized professional standards.
Myth-Busting in Mental Health Coaching
Mental health coaching is often surrounded by misconceptions that can hinder its effectiveness and accessibility. One common myth is that it’s only for individuals with severe mental health issues, when in reality, coaching can be beneficial for anyone looking to enhance their emotional resilience, improve their coping strategies, or simply navigate life’s challenges more effectively. Additionally, some people believe that mental health coaches offer therapy, but it’s crucial to understand that while coaches provide support and guidance, they focus on personal development and goal setting rather than clinical diagnosis or treatment. Debunking these myths can help create a more informed perspective on mental health coaching, allowing individuals to embrace the support it offers without stigma or misunderstanding. Ultimately, the aim is to empower individuals to take charge of their mental well-being, seeing coaching as a valuable resource on their journey.
As awareness of mental health continues to grow, coaching is increasingly recognized as a complementary form of support that can work alongside traditional mental health services. When understood correctly, coaching provides a proactive and goal-oriented approach to improving emotional wellbeing.
The Role of Coaching Alongside Professional Mental Health Support
While coaching should never be used as a replacement for counseling or therapy, there are aspects of coaching that can be helpful for clients who seek to bolster their mental health and wellbeing. Research in positive psychology suggests that mental health coaching, especially when it incorporates positive psychology techniques, can be effective for managing stress and anxiety. These approaches often focus on building strengths, fostering resilience, and promoting well-being, which can help individuals cope with challenging emotions and improve their overall mental health.
By removing ambiguity and developing clarity, structure, and accountability, all with an emphasis on empathy, life coaches help clients develop the tools and skills to take charge of their life and feel better about themselves and their mental health.
However, at CTEDU, we always refer clients to professional counselors when and if it becomes obvious that issues raised by the clients are beyond the ethical and professional scope of a coach’s services and capabilities. This is because we recognize that life coaching is not a treatment to be utilized on its own, but rather, can be used in tandem with professional counseling services.
This collaborative approach reflects CTEDU’s commitment to responsible coaching practices. By recognizing the boundaries between coaching and clinical care, coaches can ensure that individuals receive the most appropriate form of support for their needs while still benefiting from the motivational and developmental aspects of the coaching process.
Footnotes
- Hullinger, A. M. and DiGirolamo, J. A. (2018). Referring a client to therapy: A set of guidelines. Retrieved from International Coach Federation website: https://coachfederation.org/app/uploads/2018/05/Whitepaper-Client-Referral.pdf.
- Rose, G., & Smith, L. (2018). Mental health recovery, goal setting and working alliance in an Australian community-managed organisation. Health Psychology Open, 5(1), 205510291877467. doi:10.1177/2055102918774674
- Bailey, R. R. (2017). Goal Setting and Action Planning for Health Behavior Change. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, 155982761772963. doi:10.1177/1559827617729634
- Grant, Anthony. (2003). The impact of life coaching on goal attainment, metacognition and mental health. Social Behavior and Personality: an international journal. 31. 253-263. 10.2224/sbp.2003.31.3.253.
- SELIGMAN, M. E. P. (2007). Coaching and Positive Psychology. Australian Psychologist, 42(4), 266–267. doi:10.1080/00050060701648233
- Biswas-Diener, R. (2010). Practicing positive psychology coaching: Assessment, activities, and strategies for success. Wiley. https://books.google.com/bookshl=en&lr=&id=KHv5oM3JyZ0C&oi=fnd&pg=PT7&dq=positive+psychology+and+life+coaching&ots=pXK3j8b1WM&sig=pibfykUCXNz1jBH0S4eP8S8KF8I#v=onepage&q=positive%20psychology%20and%20life%20coaching&f=false.
- Denkova, E., Zanesco, A. P., Rogers, S. L., & Jha, A. P. (2020). Is resilience trainable? An initial study comparing mindfulness and relaxation training in firefighters. Psychiatry Research, 285, 112794. doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2020.112794
- Joyce, S., Shand, F., Tighe, J., Laurent, S.J., Bryant, R.A., Harvey, S.B., 2018Ab. Road to resilience: a systematic review and meta-analysis of resilience training programmes and interventions. BMJ Open 8 (6), e017858. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen2017-017858.
- Celestine, N. (2021, April 7). 3 Most Accurate Character Strengths Assessments and Tests. PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/character-strengths-assessments-tests/.
