So, you’ve decided to get some help. You have a problem, an opportunity, or a new challenge that you don’t feel you can tackle alone. Maybe you don’t have a specific outcome in mind, but want help overcoming self-doubt, or figuring out what your next step should be. You’re clear that you don’t need a therapist, but now the question is: what’s the difference between a coach and a mentor, and which do you need? 

So what’s the difference between a coach and a mentor? How do you know which you need?

A coach will work with you to achieve specific goals or improve performance. These can be personal goals or professional goals. They will work with you to help deepen your own understanding of situations around you, see other perspectives, and frame or reframe your thinking. They can help you change your mindset to be better oriented to your goals. What they won’t do is offer a lot of specific advice; a good coach will never tell you what to do. They’ll help you come up with your own solutions, and sometimes ones you hadn’t thought of before. Often they’ll help you trust the solutions you already know. Overcoming self-doubt is a hallmark of the coaching process.

You should select a coach based on their approach, and your interpersonal chemistry – there’s a lot of trust required for a coaching relationship to work, so you want someone who you can connect with. Ultimately, their job is to help you train – both your head and your heart – to achieve your desired goals.

Typically, you’ll meet with a coach often, until you’ve met your stated goal or made meaningful progress towards a desired state. Because of that goal-oriented approach, the relationship between a coach and a client can be somewhat transactional, though many find they keep coming back to their coach to help achieve the next goal, and the next. The idea is to help you motivate, inspire, or transform; once that’s done, you may or may not continue to need the support of a coach.

A mentor, on the other hand, is typically a professional relationship; most people choose a mentor who has experience in their field or industry. A mentor will help you develop your skills, or navigate various circumstances of your career or professional life, often drawing on their own experience. A mentor is much more likely to offer advice or share their own stories and experiences; if you’ve selected a mentor with whom you have a lot in common, those experiences can be very illustrative to your own situation or challenge. They may tell you what to do, and sometimes very explicitly – like a coach, you have to put trust in this person and their approach in order for that advice to be useful.

In a mentoring relationship, the client typically drives the frequency – you need advice on something in particular, or want feedback on how you’re doing at something. Mentoring relationships tend to be long-lived, but less frequent than coaching relationships. The goal is to have a sounding board you can keep coming back to, and who you can learn from throughout the seasons of your career.

It’s common to have a paid, professional coach, and it’s often more beneficial if that coach is from outside your personal or professional orbits. It’s less common to have a paid, professional mentor, and many people find mentors organically through their work (some companies have internal programs to provide mentorship). However, it’s not always easy to find a good mentor in your workplace, or to trust that that person will advise you free of their own politics or agendas. That’s where a third-party mentor can come in.

If you’re looking for coaching or mentoring, or just want to talk about your specific situation, contact me to set up a call.