Life coaching is a professional, confidential partnership where a coach helps you clarify your goals, uncover and overcome obstacles, and create actionable steps to move forward in your life.
Unlike therapy, which often explores past trauma and mental-health issues, coaching tends to focus more on the present and future — “Where do you want to be?” rather than “Why are you stuck?”

Therapy: Focuses on healing, processing deep emotional or psychological issues. Coaching: Focuses on goal-setting + action, empowerment, making forward progress.

Consulting: The consultant may give you direct advice and expert solutions. A coach helps you find your own answers, holds you accountable, and supports you as you implement.

Coaching is not just “having a friend” to talk to — the coach’s role is more structured, professional, and action-oriented.

Life coaching can help with:

Clarifying values and purpose, discovering what matters most.

Setting and achieving goals (career, personal growth, relationships, etc.).

Improving self-awareness, confidence, motivation, overcoming limiting beliefs. Developing practical strategies and action plans to move forward.

It’s worth noting: if you have a significant mental health condition (depression, anxiety, trauma) then coaching may not be the right primary support — therapy or counselling might be more appropriate.

That depends on your goals, your commitment, and the coach’s process. Some coaches ask for a 3-6 month commitment initially.
However, many allow for shorter, project-specific engagements (for example: “I want help over 8 weeks with transitioning careers” or “I want to set up a new habit for 12 weeks”).
Ultimately you’ll want to define together with your coach:

What you want to achieve

How often you’ll meet

How long you’ll continue

How you’ll measure progress

Costs vary widely depending on the coach’s experience, specialty, location, mode (online vs in-person), and whether it’s individual or group coaching. For example: typical individual life coaches may charge anything from ~$100 to several hundred dollars per hour.
It’s wise to ask coaches: Do they offer package rates? Do they do free intro sessions? What’s included?

In a session you might:

Review progress from previous session (if applicable).

Clarify what’s most important right now.

Explore challenges, obstacles or beliefs that are holding you back.

Identify next steps, actions you’ll take before the next session.

Some coaches provide tools, frameworks, homework or reflection tasks between sessions. A good session should leave you feeling more clear, motivated, and focused on your next action.