Life Coaching and Mentoring are often loosely lumped together, since both are have the goal of helping a person grow and transform by getting assistance by a person with the same goal - however they are very different in several ways.
Mentoring
In a mentoring relationship, the mentor will "teach" the mentee (or protege) what they know, to increase and accelerate their learning and progression. This can be the exact steps and process of how to get the mentee to where the mentor is now (e.g. a Senior Manager of an organisations mentoring a junior employee showing ambition and interest).
Mentoring implies that the mentor is more experienced than the mentee, in many cases they can be their superior or even supervisors, but mentoring often occurs in a more informal setting among peers.
Mentoring makes most sense in a career progress setting, where a mentee seeks out a mentor that has already travelled the career path the mentee wants to pursue. By having their expert advice and support, the career path becomes clearer, easier to navigate and more likely to be highly successful.
Most of the advice therefore will be focused on the very specific nature of that career path or the specific topic they are being mentored on.
Life Coaching
Life Coaching instead takes a wider approach, with the outcomes of the Coaching relationship being broader ranging than mentoring.
A big difference is that in Coaching, there is no implied superiority of skills or knowledge by the Coach, but rather an understanding the Coachee is ready to change themselves with the guidance of the Coach. There is nothing "missing" or broken that needs to be addressed.
Some of the themes that are covered in Life Coaching can be:
Increasing confidence in specific situations ( e.g. public speaking) or in general
Implementing positive habits (e.g. improve time management)
Change behaviours (e.g. stop procrastinating)
Resolve internal conflicts (e.g. self-doubt, self-sabotaging)
Improve self-esteem
Create better communication skills (at home, work, in general)
Have clarity of what goals to pursue and why they are important to You (instead of following an assumed career or life path)
Are you curious about how Life Coaching could help you in your personal life or career?
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