Life Coach Ramblings

Life Coaching Is a Luxury — Not a Necessity

March 23, 2026

Chicken Little comes to mind when I see certain kinds of marketing in the life coaching industry.

If you don’t remember the story, here’s the short version: an acorn falls on Chicken Little’s head, and she immediately concludes that the sky is falling. Convinced disaster is imminent, she runs off to warn others. One by one, the animals believe her and panic.

Of course, the sky isn’t falling. It was just an acorn.

The story has lasted because it reflects something very human: how quickly we can accept alarming conclusions without questioning them.

Some life coaching marketing works in a similar way. It suggests that you’re stuck because you don’t have guidance, that you can’t move forward without support, or that real growth requires investing in coaching. The message isn’t always stated outright, but the implication is clear: without a coach, you risk staying lost or stagnant.

Here’s the part that often goes unspoken:

Life coaching is not a necessity. It’s a luxury.

That isn’t a criticism. It’s simply a more accurate description of what coaching is.

People have always navigated uncertainty, relationships, purpose, and change without hiring a coach. They’ve relied on conversations with friends, mentorship, books, reflection, community, and lived experience. Growth has never depended on a single structured service.

Coaching doesn’t replace that ability. At its best, it creates a space where someone can slow down and think more clearly about their life. It offers focused attention, thoughtful questions, and time to reflect—something many people don’t regularly give themselves.

That can be valuable. It can even be transformative. But it isn’t required.

When something is framed as a necessity, it creates urgency. It makes people feel like they’re missing something essential. That’s why coaching is often marketed this way. It’s easier to sell something people feel they need than something they can choose.

The problem with that framing is that it quietly undermines people’s sense of agency. It suggests that growth depends on external help, rather than recognizing that people already have the capacity to reflect, decide, and change.

A more honest way to think about coaching is this:

Coaching is one of many ways to support personal growth—
not the only way, and not a necessity.

Calling coaching a luxury doesn’t diminish its value. Many meaningful things fall into that category—things people choose because they enrich their lives, not because they can’t function without them.

Seen this way, coaching becomes an invitation rather than a prescription.

It’s a space someone might enter because they want a dedicated conversation about their life, because they’re curious about their own thinking, or because they value having someone sit with them as they sort things out.

No urgency. No implication that something is wrong without it.

People are already capable of navigating their lives. Coaching doesn’t give them that ability—it simply supports it.

And that’s what makes it valuable.
What If “Booked Enough” Is Enough?

March 13, 2026

I stepped away from the coaching world for a while and shut the door on all of it — the subreddits, the Slack channels, the endless conversations about building a coaching business that dominated most of what was out there.

Part of it was personal. I had other things going on in my life that needed my attention. But part of it was also that I had grown tired of the conversation itself. Very little of it was actually about coaching. It’s mostly about the business of coaching.

Have we gotten so good at coaching that we no longer need to talk about frameworks, techniques, opportunities for learning, etc.?

Removing myself from the conversation allowed a truth to become clearer: I like my tiny coaching business. I enjoy growing it at a pace that would probably horrify the hustle crowd.

I do not want to be a “fully booked coach.” Honestly, I don’t have the bandwidth to be fully booked — “booked enough” is good enough. I like my me time, thank you very much.

In a lot of coaching spaces, there’s an overwhelming push to turn coaching into your main source of income. Six figures in a year. Scale your practice. Fill your calendar. When you’re constantly surrounded by that messaging, you start to feel like you’re doing something wrong if you’re not following it.

The coaching industry often oversells success. The exceptions often get mistaken for the norm.

Coaching is like any other business. It takes time to build. It depends on the market. And there are no guarantees (despite what a lot of webinars, business-building bootcamps, and workshops might suggest). You don’t see people talking about starting a restaurant or opening a small shop as if it’s easy money that anyone can turn into six figures in a year, do you? So why are so many treating coaching like it’s easy money?

But in some corners of the coaching world, that’s exactly the impression that gets created because a small percentage of coaches have done it.

Those folks are not the norm. The circumstances that produced their outcomes are often very different from the circumstances most people are working with. You might become one of them. Then again, you might not. That’s the part of the coaching industry people don’t talk about as much because it’s not sexy to talk about uncertainty.

Stepping away from the noise gave me the space to ask what I actually want from this work. It isn’t a scaled practice, a packed calendar, or a race to six figures. It’s a small coaching business that grows slowly, supports my life, and leaves me enough space to actually enjoy it.

The coaching world spends a lot of time talking about how to grow faster. I think we should spend more time talking about what “enough” looks like.
Grief

November 17, 2025
Death came in threes on my mom’s side of the family this year. In May, we lost my uncle—her second-eldest brother, the one she was closest to. In October, on the 16th, his widow died. And on November 1st, my mom’s eldest brother died—just two weeks later. Now, among the siblings, it’s just her and her younger sister left.

The specter of mortality feels increasingly real with age, and each loss in the family affects me with a depth I didn’t feel when I was younger.

Grief has a way of slowing you down if you let it, and I’ve chosen to honor that. In alignment with my muted and subdued energy, these are some things I’ve put on hold:
- Engaging with the coaching community as a whole
- Participating in coaching exchanges
- Visiting the r/lifecoaching subreddit
- Searching for new clients
- Planning what’s next
What I have continued doing:
- Focusing only on my three clients, saving my “on” energy for them (but also giving myself grace to be honest and let them know I’m grieving, rescheduling appointments if I need space)
- Slowly working on completing my requirements for my Lumia certificate
- Occasionally tinkering with my website
Everything else has been allowed to rest.

Grief has given me permission to simply be, to throw things out of the boat that I didn’t really need. A kind of permission that, under normal circumstances, I have difficulty giving myself without guilt hovering close by.

This makes me think of how we usually meet grief when it shows up. We try to hide it away or minimize it somehow. We try to get on with the business of living too soon, and at a pace that’s faster than we’re ready for, not giving it the time and space to breathe and pass through us naturally.

The next time grief (of any variety, not just bereavement) comes to you, try not to move on too quickly. If you sit with it long enough, you may see the gifts it’s trying to offer: presence, humility, and the ability to listen inward. In that pause, clarity about what comes next can finally emerge.
Thoughts After Finishing My Level 2 Training Program

October 27, 2025

So. Lumia’s Signature program is finished for me and my cohort-mates. We wrapped up classes three weeks ago and have been officially set free to go forth and spread coachiness to the world.

While I’m glad to have my Sundays back, I now feel unmoored without the structure of classes every week. The word entropy comes to mind.

What now?

Well, the immediate thing I need to do is complete my requirements for graduation. My 25 required coaching hours are completed, but I have some other loose ends to tie up before I can submit for my certificate.

As far as business-building, I’ve got three clients, my website is live, and I’m doing something with this blog—even if I’m not totally sure what that is yet, besides taking up space on the internet.

I’m not sure if it’s the transition into cooler weather, but I don’t really feel any particular hunger right now to do much else. Sure, I could develop a program, create a marketing funnel to get people to sign up, facilitate webinars or workshops, start a podcast… But you know what? No. I think I’m going to just coast where I am for a while and let the inspiration come when it’s ready.

For now, I’m happy with my little coaching practice of three clients. I maybe want to get a fourth, and I’ll do this the same way I got my first three: by offering a limited number of free sessions, with the option to pay if they want to continue. No pressure.

I also want to further my coaching learning somehow. I’ve got a backlog of 60- to 90-minute talks on the ICF learning portal to get through, so I’ll probably start with those.

I see so many new coaches hustling to get clients and grow their businesses. There’s a tiny voice in me that says I should be doing more, and sometimes it makes me feel guilty. But I know that voice isn’t really mine—it’s the one society plants in all of us, the one that ties our self-worth to ambition.

What would you be doing differently if you didn’t listen to that voice?

I think that’s the question I’ll be sitting with for a while.
Anatomy of a Coaching Session: Check-In & Setting the Agreement

October 7, 2025
This is Part 2 of a 7-part series where I’m pulling apart the structure of a coaching conversation. My aim is to give you a feel for the process so you know what to expect, and also why each step matters.

In this post, we’ll look at what happens in the first few minutes of a session: the check-in and setting the agreement. These two simple steps set the foundation for everything that follows.

The Check-In: Grounding in the Present

Coaching isn’t just talking. It’s a way of learning that sparks self-discovery, builds awareness, and helps you grow into your goals. But none of that works if your mind is tangled up in the rest of your day.

And let’s be honest, you never arrive at a session with a blank slate. By the time we meet, you’ve already been moving through your day, a swarm of thought gremlins hitching a ride in your mind. Some are loud (“I really need to respond to these texts now!”), some are sneaky (“That barista said ‘have a nice day’ weirdly. Was that sarcasm?”), and some are just buzzing aimlessly in the background (“Maybe I should learn the ukulele…”).

Starting with a check-in is our pause button. A moment to notice how you’re arriving, shake off the gremlins, and land in the conversation.

A check-in might sound simple, but here’s what it does for the session:
- It creates presence. You step out of the noise and into a space that’s just for you.
- It builds awareness. Naming how you’re showing up (“tired,” “energized,” “distracted”) brings instant clarity.
- It sets the tone. We can meet each other where we really are, not where we assume we are.
- It opens connection. It’s a reminder that this isn’t just about fixing problems, it’s about you.
- It clears the air. If something’s weighing on you, naming it stops it from quietly hogging your attention.
- It helps us calibrate. Some days you’re ready to be challenged, other days, you need more space to breathe. Checking in tells us which kind of session today calls for.
Setting the Agreement: Choosing a Direction

Once we’ve shaken off the gremlins and landed in the session, the next step is to decide where we’re headed. Coaching isn’t an aimless chat. It works best when we choose a focus for this conversation.

It’s like picking a trail before a hike. We don’t need to know every twist and turn, but we do need to know where we’re starting.

To make that clear, I like to use the TOMS framework (No, not the shoe brand. They have nothing to do with this):
- Topic: What do you want to explore today?
- Outcome: What do you want to walk away with?
- Meaning: What makes this important to you right now?
- Success measure: How will you know we’ve gotten where you wanted to go?
Here’s how that might sound:
Client: “I want to talk about balancing work and family.”
- Topic → Work-life balance
- Outcome → “I’d like to leave with one concrete strategy to try.”
- Meaning → “Because I don’t want my family to only get the leftover scraps of my energy at the end of the day.”
- Success measure → “I’ll know we’ve gotten there if I leave with a step that feels doable.”
It’s simple, but spoiler alert: just because we set an agreement doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll stick to it word-for-word.

Expect the Unexpected

Coaching sessions often take unexpected turns, even when we’ve set a clear agreement. But this isn’t a bad thing. The unexpected turns are usually where the magic happens.

The agreement gives us a compass, but as we explore, new insights tend to surface. Sometimes the issue you thought you wanted to focus on reveals a deeper layer, or something else entirely that feels more urgent. That’s the nature of exploration.

If I notice we’re veering away from the original topic, I’ll call it out and check in with you. From there, you decide: do we follow the new thread, or circle back to the starting point? Either way, the choice is yours. My job is to hold the agenda with open hands, not to grip it tightly with clenched fingers.

The point of setting the agreement isn’t to stick rigidly to a plan, it’s to create the conditions for discovery. And more often than not, the most meaningful breakthroughs happen in the detours.

To Sum It All Up…

The check-in grounds you in the present. The agreement gives us direction. And then the session itself is where structure meets openness and focus meets curiosity.

We begin with clarity, but we stay ready to follow what matters most in the moment. Because in coaching, the real growth often shows up where you least expect it.

What’s Next

In the next post, I’ll be taking a closer look at exploring the topic, and how curiosity and good questions open up new ways of seeing.
Anatomy of a Coaching Session: The Container

September 21, 2025
Many people don’t know what to expect from coaching, and I want to demystify it as much as possible. In the next few posts, I’ll be breaking down the structure I follow. It’s based on what I learned in coaching school, and most ICF-aligned coaches follow this outline.

Below are the components of a typical coaching session:
1. Check-in & Setting the Agreement – how we start the session and decide what we’re working on
2. Exploration – diving into the topic and seeing what’s underneath
3. Key Takeaways – noticing insights, “aha” moments, or shifts in perspective
4. Action Steps, Challenges, Accountability – figuring out what you want to do with those insights and how you’ll follow through
5. Wrap Up – bringing things to a close so you leave with clarity (and not a half-finished conversation)
Why Structure Matters

Coaching sessions usually last up to an hour. You’re paying for that hour, so I think it’s fair to say that time = money. Just like you don’t want your money wasted, you don’t want your time wasted.

Without structure, a session can wander from topic to topic and leave you feeling like you got a lot off your chest, but still lacking direction. Structure makes sure the session has direction. It turns a coaching conversation into something more than venting. It keeps the session purposeful, so you walk away with clarity, insights, or a next step that actually moves you forward.

Structure vs. Rigidity

But wait! Before you assume that structure means scripted, let me be clear: structure doesn’t mean I’m sticking to a rigid outline and marching us through bullet points. That would be really boring and wouldn’t serve either of us.

Picture one of those giant water slides at an amusement park (Oh, look! There’s a photo of one in this post!). The slide curves and twists, and you never know exactly what turn is coming next, but it always keeps the water moving forward.

That’s what structure does in a coaching session. It acts like a container that holds the conversation, gives it direction, and still leaves plenty of room for surprise along the way. It’s what turns a session into coaching, not just a conversation.

What’s Next

This is the first post in a 7-part series. Next time, I’ll dive into the Check-in & Setting the Agreement piece, and why those first few minutes can shape everything that follows.
Anyone Can Call Themselves a Coach — and That’s the Problem

September 12, 2025
I see a lot of posts on Reddit from people who want to sell their expertise and package it in a way that would be helpful to clients. Some have been told that they’re great at giving advice, and so they feel like they should be coaches.

The last time I saw someone post about doing this, I responded, saying that if they were going to sell their expertise and use their industry knowledge to advise people, they were better off positioning themselves as a consultant. OP (original poster) replied, “Can you elaborate?”

Below was my response:

Coaching is a non-directive process where instead of positioning yourself as someone whose knowledge can benefit the client, you are a thinking partner to them. Coaching is client driven. Instead of giving your opinions and thoughts on what they need to do, you listen to them and ask questions that help them shift their thinking, leading them to their own solutions, not the solutions you suggest or provide.

The realm of consulting is taking your expertise and using that to help clients. You pour your knowledge into them.

That said, there’s nothing to say you can’t combine both methods when working with clients. But if you’re going to lead with the intention of using your knowledge and expertise to create tools to help people and give them solutions (which is what I understand your intention to be) that’s being a consultant. But again, it doesn’t mean you can’t use some coaching in your approach. I would just position myself as a consultant.

Fortunately, OP was receptive to my response. The last time I told someone on Reddit that they weren’t coaching if they were giving advice and wanting to tell people what to do, the other person responded quite aggressively.

This recent exchange led me to post my own question:

I see a lot of people in the coaching communities wanting to sell their expertise to start coaching businesses, but coaching isn’t about providing answers. It’s client-driven and not about giving advice. It’s being a thinking partner so you can help your client surface their own wisdom about what to do.

With that said, I’m curious, what’s behind people not just calling themselves consultants? Is it misunderstanding about what coaching really is? Is it because people think the terms are interchangeable? Is it because “coaching” feels like a more approachable word than “consulting”?

Below are some of the responses:
- “These are two completely different services and should be marketed in very different ways.”
- “Words are just words. Clients only care if you can deliver results.”
- “In business, clients don’t care about the distinctions. They want outcomes and trust. Pure coaching doesn’t work in many business contexts… but blending coaching and consulting does.”
- “As long as I’m transparent with my approach and style, it doesn’t matter.”
- “A lot of people don’t actually know what coaching is. They think they’re coaching because they see others calling themselves coaches while giving advice, so that becomes the image.”
- “We need to distinguish between ICF-aligned coaching and the rest of the world. Most people think coaches tell you what to do—like a sports or fitness coach.”
It angers me when people say it doesn’t really matter. It does matter.

My issue with people calling themselves coaches when they really should say “consultant” (or something else entirely) is that it prevents the modality of coaching from being differentiated as its own, very powerful form of intervention.

I once told a friend it feels like coaching is the youngest sibling of mentoring, consulting, and therapy. It’s trying to carve out its own identity and show the world what it can do, but people keep mixing it up with its older siblings.

And then, of course, there are the folks who slap “coach” on their bio, make big promises, and don’t deliver. This drags the whole industry’s credibility down. So many people have had disappointing (or even harmful) experiences with coaches that there’s a Reddit community (LifeCoachSnark) dedicated to hating on coaching.

The thing is, most people who want to be coaches are well-meaning. But good intentions aren’t enough if you don’t have proper training. Some end up giving advice clients blindly follow, which can actually do damage.

Coaching has no barrier to entry, and that’s the root of the problem. Anyone can call themselves a coach. But if you’re going to charge hundreds or even thousands of dollars, you should have real training, certification from an accredited program, and actual hours of practice behind you. I wouldn’t trust my money, or my growth, to anyone without that foundation. “School of Life” alone isn’t enough.

Right now, the industry feels like a rough neighborhood in need of a cleanup. Until there’s some standard for who gets to use the word “coach,” we’ll keep seeing the same cycle: confusion, disappointment, and distrust.
Lessons From Coaching School

September 5, 2025

I’ve learned a lot from nearly a year of going to coaching school. Here are a few (out of many) that have stuck with me:

1. Listening skills are foundational.

They’re even more important than asking “great” questions.

Training to be a coach taught me to listen for clues on how a client sees their world. That means not interrupting, and listening not just with my ears but with my eyes. It means noticing shifts in tone, pace, or body language. And sometimes, it means listening with my heart.

Listening for its own sake, without rushing to respond, is freeing. It’s like sitting beside a river with a fishing pole in hand, waiting for the tug that tells you something meaningful has surfaced.

2. Thinking about the next question gets in the way of coaching.

If you’re worrying about your next question while your client is still talking, you’re not giving them your full attention.

I’m still working on this, but listening for potentially meaningful information stops me from anticipating what I’ll ask next. I can’t listen intently and come up with questions at the same time. It’s anxiety-inducing, which causes me not to coach well. If you stay with your client, what to ask or say next will naturally come to you. This, of course, requires taking the pressure off yourself to ask the “perfect question.”

Thinking is the enemy of the coach.
— Marcia Reynolds (Coach the Person, Not the Problem, p. 67)

3. You won’t know it’s “the perfect question” until it’s asked.

What makes a question perfect anyway? Perfect according to whom? You or your client?

I’ve asked questions that I thought weren’t particularly remarkable, and yet they led to breakthroughs. I’ve also asked ones that I thought were going to lead to some kind of shift and they ended up falling flat.

Whether a question is good or not highly depends on how your client responds, which you can’t predict.

4. When you give advice, you make the conversation about you.

We default to giving advice because not knowing feels uncomfortable. Uncertainty is fluid, untamed, and messy. When someone shares a problem, our instinct is to fix. We make suggestions, start asking “Have you tried…?” and assume they want answers.

It’s very human to feel this way. Sometimes I think that uncertainty is the bane of human existence. But sometimes people don’t want (or need) to be fixed, they just want space to weigh their options. Sometimes they just want comfort. If you jump in with advice before asking what they need, you’ve taken away their choice in how to be supported.

5. Coaching is about letting go.

This is one that I still struggle with, because I want my clients to leave sessions feeling better than they did at the beginning. I want them to feel like the coaching is working, that they’re moving closer to their desired outcomes. But I often forget that the outcomes depend on their dedication to their growth. They’re the ones who have to carry out the actions and behavior/thinking shifts that lead to change, after all.

Not worrying about your next question and not being attached to the outcome of a session are just two ways that coaching is really about letting go and being present. There are other ways that it’s about letting go, but I’ll save that for another post.
Paper Boats

August 29, 2025

I had a peer coaching session yesterday where I was the client, and my topic was this blog. I wanted a vision of what writing regularly on a schedule might look like for me because I usually write only when inspired, which would make publishing posts on a regular schedule difficult.

As good coaching sessions go, the conversation evolved beyond schedule and structure. I ended up reflecting on the tension between writing for creativity and self-expression and connection (the fun, colorful stuff), and writing because I “have to.”

I started this blog because I wanted to have an outlet for all the thoughts about coaching rattling around in my head. I wanted to get my experiences “down on paper” so I could reflect on them. My secondary motivation was that maybe someone (or a few someones) interested in the topic of coaching would benefit from reading my words.

But mixed in with that motivation, as we uncovered during the session, is the, “I don’t want to fall behind” feeling when I see my peers creating podcasts, workshops, and coaching packages. And so, on the heels of “Wouldn’t it be nice if I had a blog to express all these thoughts so they weren’t just living in my head? And wouldn’t it also be nice if someone benefited from reading about my experiences?” followed the thought, “Oh, but I could also grow a following from this and who knows, maybe a podcast eventually!”

And so the idea that I had to start learning how to write on a schedule was born.

What my very astute coaching partner could hear in my words was a desire to write from the heart, for self expression and connection. But she could also sense that outside ideas of what it looks like to be a blogger and needing to “grow an audience” were muddying up this intention.

Needing to grow an audience was a belief I unconsciously absorbed from social media culture and, let’s be honest, from wanting to keep up with my coaching peers. Once I believed I had to post regularly to generate interest, it made the idea of writing feel more like an obligation and less of a joyful experience.

I needed to return to my original intention of sharing just for the sake of sharing, keeping the urge to keep up with others out of it.

Towards the end of the session, my coach shared an image she had in her mind of me, standing on the shore, making little paper boats, and watching them float away. Some float for a while, some reach other people who are in the water, some sink, etc.

I felt an immediate connection with this image. I don’t know why, but the word “quaint” came to me. Looking it up, it means “strange and unusual in an old-fashioned and charming way.” I associate it with simplicity, innocence, being untouched by outside influences.

I ran with this metaphor and told her that I was picturing myself as a little girl, making these precious little paper boats and releasing them. My joy began and ended with the delight of watching them float away, unconcerned with what happened to them after. It was enough just to see them float. The image elicited a warm feeling in my heart.

The feeling I got when I pictured myself making these little boats with care and then releasing them just to see them float is the same feeling I get when I publish a post. I put my words out there and they float away on the ocean of other posts. I don’t know who they’ll reach, or if they’ll make any impact, but that’s not the point. The point is the joy of simply sending them out there with good intentions.
Is Anyone Even Going to Read This?

August 25, 2025
The first post is always the trickiest because I don’t really know if I should just start writing what’s on my mind or introduce myself first. I guess I’ll introduce myself.

I’m Diorella. I am a certified life coach, new to the world of coaching. I graduated from my ICF-accredited program in April, and now I’m working on getting my ACC credentials. (And if you happen to be researching coaching schools, by the way, I would LOVE to talk to you about my coaching school. No, really. I would. I love my school.)

I’m not really sure if I’ll do ACC first or just go straight to PCC, actually. It’s 100 hours for ACC vs 500 hours for PCC and there’s also that part of me that wants to have those letters after my name after doing all this work of going through training and prepping for the exam.

I read on a post on Reddit that your credentials won’t really get you clients, unless you’re looking to work for a corporation as an in-house or external coach. It’s companies who hire coaches that really look for the PCC or ACC credential. So, if you think credentials will help get you clients, it depends on whether you become an executive coach or a life coach. It feels like executive coaches get a lot more respect, by the way. Life coaches are still a mystery to a lot of people.

So that brings me to why I’m starting this blog. I google for “life coaching blogs” and I get results for personal development blogs, health and wellness blogs, blogs by life coaches talking about personal experiences and sharing “how-to” posts… But not much is out there talking about the process of becoming a coach from a first-person perspective. Or maybe I haven’t looked hard enough.

Anyway, I’ve had a lot of thoughts about coaching during this journey of becoming one, and I thought I’d share them here as I develop in my coaching career. Maybe some of you out there who are also becoming coaches have had similar feelings and thoughts?

And this blog isn’t just for people who are in the process of becoming coaches, by the way. This is also for people who are:
- Curious about coaching in general, maybe wondering what it’s all about
- Thinking about enrolling in a coaching school for certification
- Thinking about working with a life coach to help with personal goals, etc.
- Already working with a coach either at work or personally
- Already coaches
In short, it’s for anyone interested in the topic of coaching.