Coaching is often mistaken for a process focused on fixing problems. In reality, effective coaching shifts the focus away from what feels broken and toward the person making the decisions. By centering on values, strengths, and leadership, coaching helps problems shrink in importance while clarity, confidence, and sustainable growth take their place.

Coaching is frequently misunderstood, especially when it’s compared to therapy. While coaching can feel deeply therapeutic, it serves a very different purpose. Understanding where coaching fit, and where it doesn’t, helps leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals choose the right support at the right time, and get better outcomes as a result.

Coaching doesn’t offer quick fixes or shiny solutions. It offers something quieter—and far more lasting. In this year-end reflection, Julie Entwistle shares the 12 gifts of coaching, from focus and perspective to courage, connection, and transformation. Each gift reflects what coaching gives us over time: clarity, choice, and the space to keep becoming.