I have a confession.
A few weeks into my coaching training, I had someone “coach” me through a sleep problem. I wasn’t sleeping well, and they offered a suggestion: move your phone away from the bed at night to improve your sleep hygiene.
It’s genuinely good advice. I’d actually tried it before, years ago, and it had worked. So logically, I knew it was solid.
That night, I deliberately took my phone to bed with me.
Semi-consciously, I did it. Like some part of me was staging a protest against the very idea. And I only realised what I was doing the next morning when I thought, Why the hell did I do that?
This is the moment everything clicked into place.
The Advice Trap
I’ve been turning this over in my head ever since, because it’s such a clear example of something fundamental:
When someone gives you advice-even good advice, even advice you’ve had success with before-there’s something in you that resists it. Some part of you rebels against it.
The phone is a perfect example. The suggestion was objectively helpful. But because it came from outside me, because it was implanted rather than discovered, I rejected it. Actively. Almost defiantly.
Now, flip that. Imagine if instead of being told to move my phone, I’d been asked: “What do you think might be affecting your sleep? What have you noticed? What have you tried before that’s worked?”
If I’d come to the phone conclusion myself, through my own thinking-if it had emerged from my own mind rather than being handed to me-I’d have no resistance to it. In fact, I’d own it. I’d want to do it.
This is the difference between being coached and being advised.
And I’m noticing this everywhere now.
The Real Distinctions
Let me be clear about what I mean. There are four different types of professional support out there, and they’re not interchangeable:
Coaching is where someone helps you think more clearly about your situation by asking questions, listening deeply, and helping you access your own wisdom. The coach doesn’t have a hidden agenda about what you should do or think. They’re purely focused on your thinking. You’re the expert on your own life.
Mentoring is where someone with relevant experience shares what they’ve learned. You’re benefiting from their knowledge and their journey. They’re offering advice based on “here’s what worked for me” or “here’s what I’ve learned.” It’s valuable-genuinely-but it’s advice wrapped in experience.
Therapy or counselling is clinical support aimed at healing. It’s for when something from your past is getting in the way of your present. Trauma, anxiety disorders, depression, relationship patterns rooted in earlier wounds. It’s about recovery and healing.
Consulting is when you hire someone who has specialist expertise to solve a specific problem. An accountant, a lawyer, a structural engineer. You’re paying for their knowledge to fix something you can’t fix alone.
These are completely different things. But the internet, Facebook groups, and the general blur of the coaching industry have made it so these terms get used interchangeably. And that’s a problem.
Why It Matters
Here’s what I’m noticing: a lot of people call themselves “coaches” when what they’re actually offering is mentoring or advice.
I spent time in various coaching Facebook groups-it’s quite the landscape. You get genuinely brilliant, ICF-accredited coaches doing serious work. You also get people who’ve had a significant personal experience and now they’re offering “life coaching” or “relationship coaching” or “business coaching” based on that experience.
Again-not saying that’s bad. Mentoring is valuable. But it’s not coaching. And if you hire someone thinking they’re going to coach you, and they actually spend the session telling you what worked for them, you’re going to have a different experience than you expected.
The reason this matters is that advice-even good advice-comes with a weird side effect, which I’ve just proven to myself with the phone. When someone tells you what to do, part of you resists it. Even if you know they’re right.
But when you think something through yourself? When the insight comes from you? You own it. You commit to it. You do it.
How This Changed My Hypnotherapy Practice
This isn’t just a coaching revelation for me. I’m noticing it bleeding into my hypnotherapy work, and it’s been genuinely transformative.
I’ve been doing hypnotherapy and NLP for 15 years. And I’ve just realised I’ve been approaching it wrong-or at least, ineffectively-in certain moments.
There were times where I’d be in session with a client, and I’d be trying to prod them toward a particular insight. An insight I thought they should have. Even if it was dressed up in therapeutic language, it was still me pushing a conclusion.
Now I’m far more focused on giving space for clients to find their own truths. To think through their experience without me steering the boat.
The difference in effectiveness is remarkable. Because when the client’s own mind produces the insight-when they say it, discover it, realise it themselves-they own it in a completely different way than if I’d suggested it.
It’s the same principle as the phone. The source matters.
What This Means For You
If you’re thinking about working with someone who calls themselves a coach, here’s what to pay attention to:
Are they asking you questions and genuinely curious about your thinking? Or are they telling you what to do?
Are they offering their own experience and advice? (That’s mentoring-which might be what you need, but it’s not coaching.)
Are they listening to understand your perspective? Or are they listening to find the moment they can insert their own idea?
The subtle difference matters enormously. Because coaching-real coaching-works precisely because it bypasses that resistance. It works because the insights and decisions come from you.
It’s why I had to deliberately sabotage myself with the phone. My unconscious mind was rejecting advice, even good advice. But if I’d discovered the phone solution myself? I’d have implemented it without hesitation.
The Gold Standard
This is also why ICF credentials matter. The International Coaching Federation doesn’t just train people in coaching techniques. They train people in not giving advice. They have strict ethical codes around the coaching relationship and what it means to be non-directive.
A coach with ICF credentials has proven they understand this distinction. They’ve been assessed on it. They’ve shown they can hold the space for your thinking without contaminating it with their own agenda.
That doesn’t mean every non-credentialed person offering coaching is doing it wrong. But it does mean you have a reference point for what you should expect.
Here’s The Thing
I think everyone deserves to experience real coaching at least once. Not advice. Not mentoring. Not someone else’s wisdom imposed onto you.
Real coaching-where someone creates the space for your thinking to emerge, your own solutions to surface, your own wisdom to be accessed-is genuinely different.
And once you’ve experienced it, you’ll notice the difference immediately. Because when the insight comes from you, everything changes. You own it. You live it. You don’t rebel against it semi-consciously by taking your phone to bed.
