When You Don't Know What Kind of Support You Actually Need

On the difference between coaching, mentoring, and consulting, and why you don't have to figure it out alone.

You've been thinking about getting support for a while now. You've watched other women in healthcare hire coaches, mention their consultants, talk about their mentors. And somewhere in the back of your mind, a quiet question has been forming: which one do I actually need?

You've probably worked with a coach before, or heard about consultants who specialize in your kind of practice, or wished you had a mentor who'd already walked the path you're walking. And every time you sit down to figure out which type of support is right, it starts to feel like one more decision you don't have the bandwidth to make. So you keep waiting. Keep researching. Keep tabs open in your browser.

It Makes Sense That This Feels Confusing

The language around support work in our industry is genuinely unclear. The same person might call themselves a coach on one platform, a consultant on another, and a mentor in a third. The lines blur because, in real practice, they often do overlap. And when you're already running on empty, trying to parse the difference between three categories of support starts to feel like one more thing you're failing at.

You're not failing. You're being asked to make a decision in a space that hasn't given you a clear map. That's a structural gap, not a personal one. Here is how I think about the differences, and where I actually live in the work I do.

Coaching

Coaching is process-driven and non-directive. A good coach asks powerful questions and helps you find your own answers. The premise is that the answer is already inside you, and the work is to surface it, examine it, and trust it.

Coaching is the right modality when you need space to think. When you're trying to make a decision, you can feel that the answer is somewhere in you, but you can't quite reach it on your own. It's excellent for mindset, vision, and the deep clarity that comes before strategy. It is not the right fit when what you actually need is someone to tell you how to set up your billing system.

Mentorship

Mentorship shares lived experience. A mentor has walked a path similar to yours, made the decisions you're now facing, and built something on the other side of those decisions. They offer wisdom, perspective, and pattern recognition from their own journey.

Mentorship is the right modality when you need to learn from someone who has already done the thing. When you're standing at a crossroads and you want to hear how someone else navigated it. It compresses years of trial and error into conversations that help you avoid the most expensive mistakes. It's especially valuable when the question isn't what to do but what it actually feels like to do it, and what you'll need to hold steady when it gets hard.

Consulting

Consulting brings expertise to a specific problem. A consultant diagnoses the issue, recommends a path forward, and often helps deliver the solution. The work is technical, structural, and outcome-oriented.

Consulting is the right modality when you have a specific operational problem and you need someone with the skill to solve it. When you need a financial model built, a workflow designed, a hiring structure mapped out, a fee schedule reviewed. It's what you need when you've done the thinking and now you need the building.

Where I Actually Live

In real practice, the women I work with don't need just one of these. They need fluid access to all three, depending on what's in front of them on any given week.

So I do all three, and I move between them based on what you need at the moment.

• When you need to think something through, I coach.

• When you need to learn from someone who has built and scaled a cash-based practice, I mentor.

• When you need a system built or a financial model explained, I consult.

And honestly, most of the time, the same conversation moves through all three. We start by surfacing what you actually want. We move into how I built something similar and what I learned. We end with a concrete next step, a system to build, or a number to look at differently.

What This Looks Like in Practice

Imagine you're three years into your cash-based practice. You're booked out, but you're tired. You know you need to hire, but every time you sit down to think about it, you spiral. You've been told to hire a virtual assistant, hire a clinician, hire an office manager. None of it feels right, and you can't tell if that's intuition or fear.

In that conversation, we might start with coaching. What does your week actually feel like? What's draining you that doesn't have to be? What kind of business are you trying to build, not in the abstract, but in the specific texture of your daily life?

Then we move into mentorship. Here's what I noticed when I was at a similar stage. Here's what I would have done differently. Here's the one decision that changed the trajectory for me, and why.

Then we move into consulting. Based on what you've said and what I know about your numbers, here's the role I'd hire first. Here's the rate. Here's the scope. Here's the system you need in place before they start.

By the end, you don't just have a decision. You have clarity, context, and a structure to act on.

You Don't Have to Figure Out Which One You Need

If you've been holding off on getting support because you can't tell which type you need, I want to offer you this: that's my job, not yours.

You don't have to arrive with a perfect diagnosis of your own situation. You don't have to know whether what you're feeling is a mindset issue, a strategy gap, or a systems failure. Most of the time, it's some combination of all three, and the work is to notice that in real time and meet you where you actually are.

A Closing Reflection

If you've been stuck in research mode, if you've had three browser tabs open for a month, if you've been telling yourself you'll hire someone once you figure out which kind of someone you need, here's the question worth sitting with:

What if the reason you can't decide isn't that you're indecisive, but that you've been asked to make a decision the structure of the industry hasn't given you the tools to make?

You don't need to come in knowing. You just need to come in honest about what feels stuck. The right kind of support, at the right moment, is something we build together.