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Do I Need a Coach or a Therapist?

By Ann Imig

Generally speaking, a coach helps us when we feel stuck with a decision, hit a stumbling block, or need clarity about a goal. A therapist assists us during times of personal crisis, serious or stressful life events, or if prolonged issues interfere with our day-to-day wellbeing. One process might lead to the other, and both are highly valuable.

Madison, Wisconsin Life Coach Ann Imig

I’m certified in Positive Psychology Coaching, a method grounded in neuroscience and evidence-based research, designed to help people navigate transitions, set and achieve goals, and create other kinds of positive change in their lives, work, relationships, and overall well-being. It is not advice giving, psychological counseling, or therapy.

“Coaching focuses on visioning, success, the present, and moving into the future. Therapy emphasizes psychopathology, emotions, and the past in order to understand the present. The purpose of coaching is frequently about performance improvement, learning, or development in some area of life while therapy often dives into deep-seated emotional issues to work on personal healing or trauma recovery.” – International Coaching Federation

Crush Your Goals + Fuel Your Joy

If you’re a 20-Something (or heck, a 50-Something) paralyzed by the pressure to have your future figured out? Take a deep breath.

You’re not doing it wrong.

Becoming what and who we want to be when we grow up doesn’t mean waiting for an epiphany, it means taking clear decisive action one step at a time.

There are no wrong directions. Only forward.

Even better, there are no wrong moves. With every action we gain more information, which helps us determine the next action. Even a half-step forward builds momentum and clarity.

Working with Ann has been life changing. From our first 30 minute conversation I felt a clarity and perspective that I didn’t have before. Her insights empowered me to understand and navigate the obstacles that have been blocking me for a long time

Sally Penn

Take hopeful action (even if you don’t feel hopeful).

Building positivity helps us become resilient against negativity. Chronic stress and negative emotions can impair our brain function, and in today’s world, we’re constantly exposed to negative events. Positive emotions, on the other hand, improve our health and provide resources for growth and change, enhancing our ability to bounce back. I use a daily system proven to build and strengthen the positive side of your brain, boosting your mood, performance, and relationships.

Try this right now.

Optimism doesn’t mean opposite. Practicing positive emotions doesn’t require a drastic change. You don’t have to go from sad to happy instantly. A small pivot towards interest, amusement, or awe can make a difference and improve your mental health, performance, and relationships. Hug a friend or your pet for a least 10 seconds. Take 3 deep breaths and feel the calm in brings to your body. Go outside and watch the cloud shapes.

Meet with me next week. Let’s do this.

I’m a Madison, Wisconsin based Positive Intelligence Certified Coach, life coach, and career coach. I coach over Zoom, anywhere in the world. Schedule a free consult.

life coach career coach madison wi

Disrupt Your Saboteurs

9 Ways We Self-Sabotage

from positiveintelligence.com

Saboteurs are the voices in our head that generate stress and negative emotions in the way we handle work and life’s challenges. They sabotage our potential for both happiness and performance.

Saboteurs start off as our guardians to help us survive the real and imagined threats to our physical and emotional survival as children. By the time we are adults, we no longer need them, but they have become invisible inhabitants of our mind.

Our Saboteurs’ patterns of thinking, feeling, and reacting become soft-coded in our brain through neural pathways. When these neural pathways are triggered, we are “hijacked” by our Saboteurs and instantly feel, think, and act using their patterns.

I disrupted my saboteurs, and made long-lasting change. You can, too.

Thanks to my daily commitment to practicing positive psychology, and specifically Positive Intelligence (PQ), my saboteurs no longer control me. Yes, they exist, but I now employ a whole host of tools to quiet them, and make different choices. I’ve strengthened the part of my brain where calm positive emotions live, and I can access it more readily.

It sounds like magic, it feels like magic, but it’s neuroscience.

  1. Take the saboteur assessment
  2. Schedule your free consult
  3. Make long-lasting change with me

“I was adrift for nearly a decade…learning PQ changed my life”

 – Maria Van Horn, PQ group client

“…it’s been an immense and life-altering change for the better. I have even noticed unexpected healing with GI/digestion issues and better sleep! Thank you, Ann!” 

– Stephanie Wilson, PQ group client

Positive Psychology NOT Toxic Positivity

When people hear the words “positive psychology” they might think it means allowing only for happy feelings at all times, or “fake it ’till you make it.”

The full range of emotion is welcome here.

Positive psychology is the study of what works in humans. By identifying and building each person’s unique strengths, positive psychology helps us improve our functioning, wellbeing, and relationships. Positive psychology recognizes the challenges and hardships inherent in life, and honors human suffering. Life and career coaching using a positive psychology framework offers evidenced-back tools and practices to enable a shift. When faced with hard moments of negative emotion, positive psychology starts with self-compassion, and then allows us to better access our right brains. In our right brains we can access calm, creativity, curiosity, intuition and a wide range of positive emotions. More positive emotions often translates directly to more options in front of us, in real time.

No faking it.

Toxic positivity rejects negative emotions entirely, and suggests we put on a happy face (even when we don’t feel happy). Research shows negative outcomes to our wellbeing when we force positivity.

How does Positive Psychology build what works?

We begin by identifying your strengths. Figuring out your signature strengths holds the key for increase ease and flow in your life – you feeling like your best most effortless self. From there we will customize a path forward for your personal and/or professional life, using a variety of research-based techniques and tools. Wondering exactly how this looks?

Check out Bryan’s reflection about career coaching with Ann Imig

Set-up a free 30-minute consult.

Life Coach Interview: Creating Change With Ann Imig

photo of life coach Ann Imig for Whent The Flames Go Up podcast interview

When new vistas beckon later in life, we can often feel paralyzed by possibility. Certified life coach Ann Imig has studied how we can literally change our minds and find the strength and wisdom to make the jump. Listen here.

If you’re a certain age and have the motive and opportunity for a life change but aren’t sure where and how to jump, Ann Imig has studied some data-driven techniques for getting unstuck. After careers in theater, writing, and ad sales led her to create Listen To Your Mother, Ann finally realized a long-held desire, marshaled her diverse skill set and MSW degree, and became a career and life coach.

Ann’s main takeaway as the youngest child in a multiple-marriage, “nutso family system” is that she had lots of adults who loved her. This helps explain her affinity for the Positive Intelligence program, which helps people assess their behavioral patterns and determine when it might be useful to try the opposite.

It’s especially helpful for those who over-rely on external validation or hyper achievement for their self worth, pin their hopes on the illusive thought that “I’ll be happy when,” and wonder if they’ll ever feel curious again. As she did.

To improve our lives, we fifty-somethings often need to shift five decades of obsolete instinct and get our brains out of our own way. We talk about how possible that is, along with the influence of Martin Seligman, drawing out celebrations in order to savor them, and life as a JewBu.

When The Flames Go Up is an excellent community of later-stage parents, with a podcast by Magda Pecsenye and Doug French. “After we divorced, we started a blog about co-parenting to learn how to work together until our kids were grown. And now that they are, and the world is so busy disrupting and disavowing what we thought we were working for, we’re looking to our community to help us all keep up.”

Listen to more podcast conversations with life coach Ann Imig here.

Interested? Let’s go! Click for a consultation