Why You're Probably Hiring the Wrong Person to Help You

You're stuck. You know you need help, so you do what everyone does. You hire someone. A therapist, a life coach, a mentor. Maybe all 3. 6 months later, you're still stuck. Maybe a bit clearer, maybe a bit more self-aware, but fundamentally still stuck. Here's what nobody tells you. You probably hired the wrong kind of help, and it's not your fault because nobody explains the difference. I'm Martin Pavion, and this is the Martin Pavion Podcast. Today I want to save you years of frustration and thousands of pounds by breaking down what therapy, coaching, mentoring, and consulting actually do. And more importantly, which one you actually need right now. Quick disclaimer before we dive in: I'm a clinical hypnotherapist, coach, and NLP practitioner. I'm not a medical professional. Nothing I say here is medical advice. If you're struggling with serious mental health issues, please speak to your GP or a qualified therapist. Right now Let's get into it. So a few months ago, a client came to me. Let's call her— let's call her Sarah. Sarah had spent the last 3 years trying to fix herself, and I mean, she was really trying. She'd done 2 years of therapy with a brilliant therapist, a lovely person. They'd unpacked her childhood, explored her relationship patterns, understood why she was such a people pleaser. Then she hired a business mentor because she wanted to leave her corporate job, start her own thing. And the mentor gave her a step-by-step plan, really solid advice, really practical. And then she hired a life coach because she still felt stuck. The coach helped her set goals, gave her accountability, and cheered her on. And yet she came to me She was still stuck. Not because any of these people were bad at what they did. They were all excellent. She was stuck because she kept hiring the wrong person for the wrong stage of her journey. And this is the problem. The industry is a mess. Everyone calls themselves a coach, and the word coaching has become this catch-all term for therapy, Mentoring, consulting, life coaching, spiritual guidance, and probably about a dozen other things as well. So let me break it down, not with like academic definitions. I couldn't really care what the coaching bodies say, but let me tell you what each of these actually does for you in practice. Let's start with therapy. Therapy helps you understand your past. It's about processing trauma, exploring patterns, and making sense of why you are the way you are today. If you had a difficult childhood, if you're carrying unresolved pain, if you need to understand your emotional triggers, therapy is brilliant for that. But here's the thing, therapy doesn't build your future. It helps you make peace with your past. So if you've done 2 years of therapy and you're still stuck at a crossroads, it's not because therapy failed. It's because you're asking it to do something it was never designed to do. Let's talk now about mentoring. A mentor is someone who's done what you want to do, and they say, here's how I did it, here's what worked for me. If you want to start a business and your mentor built 3 successful companies, That's gold, and they can save you years of mistakes. But mentoring has a limit. Their path isn't your path. What worked for them in, say, 2015 might not work for you in 2025. Um, more importantly, a mentor can't help you figure out what you actually want. They can only show you how they got what they wanted. Then there's consulting. A consultant gives you the plan. They step outside, they assess your situation, design a roadmap, and they hand it to you. Here's what you need to do. Step 1, step 2, step 3. And that's brilliant if you know what you want, but You don't know how to get there. A consultant can't make you into a person who can execute that plan though. They can't shift your mindset, they can't address your self-sabotage, they can't help you navigate the emotional resistance that comes up when you try to change. So what about coaching? Like real coaching? And I mean proper coaching, not just somebody calling themselves a coach. Real coaching doesn't tell you what to do. Coaching helps you figure out what you actually want, and then it builds your capacity and go get it. A good coach asks you questions that you've never asked yourself. They hold up a mirror, they challenge your assumptions, and they help you see your blind spots. But here's the catch. Coaching assumes that you're basically okay. It assumes that you don't have any deep trauma blocking you. It assumes your unconscious mind isn't sabotaging you at every turn. And for a lot of people, maybe you, that assumption doesn't hold. And this brings me to hypnotherapy and NLP, neuro-linguistic programming. This is where it gets interesting. Hypnotherapy and NLP work on your unconscious mind, and they address the patterns, the beliefs, the emotional blocks that are running in the background. You know, the things where you know logically what you should do, but you just, you just can't. And that's your unconscious mind perhaps protecting you from something. Hypnotherapy and NLP, they help you access that part of yourself, understand it, and shift it. It's not about willpower or motivation. It's about clearing the blocks so the path forward becomes obvious. So here's what I learnt, and it's what Sarah learnt. Different stages of transformation need different tools. If you're carrying unresolved trauma, start with therapy. Process the past, make peace with it. If you know exactly what you want and you need a roadmap, hire a consultant or a mentor. If you know roughly what you want but you're not sure, or you keep sabotaging yourself, or you're stuck in patterns you can't break, that's where coaching and hypnotherapy come in. And most people, most people need a blend. And that's why I combine coaching with hypnotherapy and NLP, and sometimes mentoring, because you need the clarity and structure of coaching, but you also need to address the unconscious blocks that keep pulling you back. So if you're stuck right now, here's the question to ask yourself. Do I need to understand my past, or do I just need to build my future? Do I need someone to tell me what to do, or do I need help figuring out what I actually want? Do I need a plan, or do I need help to become the person who can execute the plan? And here's the big one. Am I stuck because I don't know what to do, or because something inside me won't let me do it? That last one, that's the unconscious stuff, and that's where most people get stuck. You can have all the clarity in the world, all the plans, all the accountability, but if your unconscious mind believes you're not safe to succeed, or you don't deserve it, or change is dangerous, You're not going anywhere. Sarah figured this out. We did 6 sessions together. Coaching to get clear on what she actually wanted. Hypnotherapy to clear the unconscious blocks, the fear of judgment, the belief that she wasn't good enough, the people-pleasing patterns she'd been running since she was, I think, 7. And then she moved really fast. Not because I gave her a magic formula, but because we addressed the right things at the right stage. So here's what I want you to take away from this. If you're stuck, don't just hire someone. Get specific. Ask yourself, what do I actually need right now? And if you're not sure, If you've tried therapy, coaching, mentoring, and you're still stuck, chances are you need to address the unconscious patterns that are keeping you in place. That's the work I do. Coaching for clarity, hypnotherapy for deep change. If this resonated with you, subscribe to the Martin Pavion Podcast wherever you're listening. New episodes drop twice a week. I'd love to hear from you. What kind of help have you tried? What worked? What didn't? Send me a message at martin@martinpavion.com. And if you're ready to explore how coaching and hypnotherapy can help you get unstuck, visit martinpavion.com for a free 20-minute clarity call. No pressure. No sales pitches, just Clouetti. Thanks for listening. I'm Martin Pavion, and I'll see you in the next one.