What’s the Difference Between a Life Coach and a Mentor?

When it comes to needing help with one’s personal or professional growth, there are quite a handful of options to choose from. From a life coach to a therapist to a mentor to a consultant, there are specialists of many kinds one can turn to for help to achieve one’s desired goals. But there’s often confusion about who does what. In this article, we take a detailed look at everything that makes a life coach different from a mentor.

Definition

To understand the difference between life coaching and mentoring, let’s begin by defining them. According to the International Coaching Federation, coaching is "partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential."

On the other hand, mentoring is the process whereby a more experienced person shares their knowledge, life experience, and skills with a less experienced person to help that person reach their full potential personally and professionally.

These definitions demonstrate that life coaching and mentoring share similarities while being different, which is why the two terms are often mistakenly used interchangeably. As we go further down our discussion, the differences will become clearer to you.

Nature of help

Both life coaches and mentors help people grow and develop. But they do this differently. Life coaches give their clients neither advice nor any answers. Instead, they help their clients grow by finding their own answers and their solutions. They do this by helping their clients expand their self-awareness to get to the root of their problems and discover what’s holding them back.

By contrast, mentors guide and advise their mentees to show them the “right” path. They share their personal experiences so the mentees can draw lessons from them and find the inspiration to overcome the challenges facing them.

Nature of relationship

A coaching relationship is formal. It has a start and an end date and is guided by expectations and obligations that a life coach and a client agree upon mutually. A mentoring relationship, on the other hand, tends to be informal and long-term and may even develop into a friendship.

A life coach and a client are like equal partners. They work together to co-create a vision and coaching outcomes for the client. A mentor and a mentee’s relationship is one where there’s a hierarchy. The mentor is someone senior and has a greater level of experience in the mentee’s domain of expertise. The mentee looks up to the mentor as a source of inspiration whose career path is worth emulating. In that sense, the mentor-mentee relationship is not a relationship between equals.

Life coach certification vs. mentor certification

There are no legal certification requirements to become a life coach. Nevertheless, a life coach certification looks great on the resume and is something clients look out for when searching for a coach. Life coach courses that lead to a life coach certification are also highly recommended for the educational and skill-building role they play for aspiring life coaches.

Likewise, for mentoring, there are no certification requirements. It’s the real-life experience of a mentor that gives them the social standing they enjoy and that a mentee seeks. Besides, the informal nature of a typical mentor-mentee relationship means certification is not even desired. Nonetheless, mentoring is now used in formal settings, giving rise to mentoring certifications. The possibility that mentor certifications will become ubiquitous like life coach certifications someday can’t be ruled out.

Experience

A life coach need not have any exposure to or experience in the client’s field of work. The coach’s personal experiences and professional expertise are immaterial to the services they offer. Even if the coach has undergone a life coach course and has a life coaching certification to their credit, they do not become subject matter experts. A life coach certification implies that the coach is well-versed in the theories and tools of coaching and has the essential skills required to carry out coaching sessions professionally.

On the other hand, a mentor is a well-established expert in the mentee’s field of work. The mentor has a rich professional experience in that domain and has already achieved what the mentee aspires to achieve. However, mentoring interactions tend to be informal and free-flowing such that the mentor’s presence and experience do not overwhelm the mentee but instead inspire them to follow in the mentor’s path and act on their guidance and advice.

With that, we come to the end of our discussion on how life coaching and mentoring differ. There are some similarities between the two, but they have their distinct features. If you have been contemplating doing a life coach course, this Life Coach Certificate is one of the best and most economically priced life coach courses you can find online. You can also up your life coaching game with this Master Life Coach Certificate.