Building the Life You Want

Life coaches talk goals, values, and challenges

By Art Bukowski | Jan. 3, 2026

Who needs a life coach?

While people seek out life coaches for a variety of reasons, one theme is almost always present, coaches say: They’re stuck.

Sometimes they can clearly identify the hump. Sometimes it’s just a general feeling of spinning wheels without positive momentum. Either way, they’ve identified that they just can’t do it on their own.

“A lot of times it’s people who are tired of their same old story,” says Traverse City-based coach Shea Petaja. “They come to me when they’re ready to build the life they want. They need to put structure to what that looks like, and they’re ready to be pushed.”

Northern Express connected with two local life coaches to find out more about the business of helping people make the most of their lives—and themselves.

What Is Life Coaching?

There is a lot of overlap between coaches, counselors, therapists, and other professionals who speak to people and help them overcome issues.

One big and important difference between therapy/counseling and life coaching is that the latter isn’t intended to diagnose or address medical issues like anxiety or depression. While those issues might occur in someone seeking life coaching, a life coach isn’t qualified to treat them.

“Therapy looks to the past to help people with the present, [while] coaching looks at the future to help people with decisions,” Petaja says. “Both modalities look at patterns that keep people stuck.”

Pretty much anyone could see benefits from a life coach, coaches themselves say. And it’s not just for people whose lives are a mess, as plenty of successful people come in for coaching.

“I think a lot of people who benefit from life coaching are healthy, successful, and doing pretty well, but there’s some area that they haven’t met a goal or achievement yet, or some area that doesn’t feel quite right to them,” says local coach Mandy Remai of Seasons of Life Counseling.

How It Works

Life coaches are like other professionals in that they can be generalists or specialize in certain areas. They also can have very different styles.

Remai, who is also a licensed professional counselor (LPC), often sees her clients on an as-needed approach to deal with a wide variety of issues, from interpersonal communication to aging parents to career roadblocks and much more. She often has regular contact with her clients as they work through an issue, then she might not see them for months or years until they need her again.

Petaja, on the other hand, wants her clients in and out in a year or less (often six months) in large part because she finds that they want it that way, too. A defined start and end point gives greater focus and urgency to her sessions, something that resonates with clients. Set some goals, then get ’em done.

“I've had people say to me, ‘Shea, you put things together faster than my therapist has in the last five years,’” she says. “And I think people are looking for that because things are changing around us so fast right now. We have to be able to adapt quickly and move. You can’t sit on things for too long anymore.”

There’s room for both styles, which serve fundamentally different purposes.

“Mandy’s life coaching style is much more life management and mine is much more life outcome,” Petaja says of her close friend Remai.

Positioning for Change

Regardless of differences in time and tempo, coaches are tasked first and foremost with helping people realize their potential—and get out of their own way.

“I think the greatest asset a coach can give is providing a strong, solid sense of what’s really possible for us,” Remai says. “Because sometimes we can be our own worst critic. It’s easy to start out strong and then kind of get in our own way with some of our repetitive patterns of either thinking or behaving. And sometimes we’re just too close to our own stuff to figure it out.”

Some clients start the process with goals in mind; others are unsatisfied with life in general and need a path forward. Petaja works collaboratively with her clients to identify goals, which are based on their personal values. From there, the sky’s the limit.

“I want to position you for change, and the only way to do that is for me to work through your personal values, the purpose you feel that you have in this life,” she says. “Then from there, when people have a foundation to work from, we can start to create. When people have a safe foundation, their creativity just starts to blow up. It’s awesome.”

The real value proposition is being able to troubleshoot your problems with a trained, experienced professional who’s seen it all and who doesn’t have a personal connection to the client’s problems.

“An outside person with some expertise, knowing how to ask the right questions, can really help us gain ground in a much quicker manner,” Remai says.

And unlike therapy, where the goal is for a patient to have certain self-realizations, life coaches are more inclined to offer direct advice and solutions to problems.

“When you go to a therapist, they’ll sit, they’ll listen. Their job is to help draw this stuff out of you over time. That’s the training,” Petaja says. “With coaching, I can speak my mind. I can give opinions and solutions. We can have a disagreement in coaching. It’s fun. It’s very interactive.”

Petaja is not scared to push her clients toward their goals.

“My clients are often uncomfortable, but they’re not in crisis. So I can push them and challenge them at a much more immediate level, and that’s the reason I put a beginning and an end on our engagement, because they need to see that we’re not messing around. It’s go time. Our sessions are pretty intense and forward thinking.”

This intensity is quite often the exact opposite of many folks’ assumptions in regards to life coaching, Petaja says.

“I think they think it’s cheesy, like light and fluffy work, but it’s highly impactful and it’s very intense,” she says. “We’re gonna dig out some roots and beliefs that are keeping you from moving forward. It’s going to affect your relationships, your health, your career. I call my program the ‘holy shift’ for that reason.”

A Give and Take

As with therapy, life coaching can only work if the client buys in and the plan for success is attainable.

“It has to be their plan first because I can come up with a plan, but is it something that the client is willing to do?” Remai says. “Because if it’s not, it’s not an effective plan.”

Remai acknowledges that sometimes it can be hard walking the line between the potential she sees for a client and the potential the client sees in themselves.

“I think a challenge I had early on that is better today is where I think somebody should be or could be and where they want to be, and remembering that they get to decide,” she says.

And even with direct coaching and advice, there are still certain things clients have to discover on their own, Petaja says.

“I think the biggest challenge for me is the relationships around my clients that are holding them back. And that takes years sometimes for people to be able to set boundaries with people that are holding them back and keeping them from excelling and growing. And as a coach, you can see it, but you know that you have to give it time and let the client have their experience. Letting people have their journey is always the hardest part, whether you’re a coach or a therapist or a friend.”

Learn more at sheapetaja.com and seasonsoflifecounselingandcoaching.com.