Essay: Instagram Life Coaches
Why you should be critical of the cult of the Instagram life coach.
Hello wonderful people,
I’ve been working on a essay and it’s finally ready for you all. I’m experimenting with bringing back my critical voice, so this took some time. It’s been a few years since I’ve written work like this.
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts about this essay, including any experiences or reflections you may have had in relation to the topic.
I hope the retrograde season isn’t causing too much havoc & that you’re all feeling safe and loved.
With love + solidarity,
Lamisse
I recently delved into the murky world of the Instagram life coaches. I followed multi-million dollar life coaches to emerging coaches still aiming to crack into six-figure bracket over the last four months. There were coaches with a couple of thousand followers to micro-celebrity coaches with between 10k to 70k followers. I wondered if they were valiant, caring souls working to encourage people’s personal growth and success or mini-cult figures exploiting people's needs in pursuit of seven-figure businesses?
1. “‘No, it’s not a problem, it’s your thinking about it as a problem that’s making it a problem.’”
It’s likely my hangover from a strict & religious upbringing, but I shrivel in my soul when I feel like someone is telling me what I think, what to think, or attempts to deny my experience of reality. Life coaching doesn’t often validate the structural and material barriers in a person’s life, but rather boils all of life’s challenges down to one thing: your thoughts. You can see this coming whenever there’s a coach who wants to discuss “limiting beliefs.”
It seems quite straight-forward, a “real talk” type of argument: “The reason you not as < happy / successful / rich / content > as you want to be is because of your limiting beliefs". Simply put, you are in your own way.
There’s something ick about this hyper-individualised neoliberal thinking that centres blame upon a person, weaponising the concept of self-responsibility. Yes, self-responsibility is important, but it is not the only factor that can shift the circumstances of our lives. The framing of ‘limiting beliefs’ negates the realities of the structures and power dynamics we’re constantly navigating in our attempts to build the life we dream of. It dismisses the collective action that is also needed to change our circumstances through its primary focus on the individual. To me, it comes across as a form of gaslighting; one that denies material and structural realities by making it all about your thoughts.
That said, there is psychological value to the concepts of limiting beliefs and its cousin: manifestation. That’s due to the fact they’re concepts drawn from the field of psychology: the processes some coaches employ to help clients deal with self-limiting beliefs derive from CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy). While what is called mental contrasting (visualisation techniques that can be used to encourage action) is repackaged as manifestation — and sold as an easy solution to your struggles.
I don’t see many political, or politicised, life coaches - of those I have seen, there seems to be a theme of repurposing radical, decolonial politics for marketing purposes (more on that later). I have yet to see life coaches on Instagram discuss the material barriers to self-actualisation, particularly within marginalised communities. This includes issues such as: housing, finances, relationships, economics, policy, country of origin/citizenship, education, access to opportunities, networks and mental health. Yeah, it’s a big ask but this is not about asking people to become a critical theorists; it’s about asking for an honesty that speaks to the complexity of life.
But the goal of life coaching is only partially about helping people: the bigger goal seems to be money.
2. “There is less stigma about charging a higher fee since coaching is considered a luxury.”
One thing that struck me was how often coaches discussed the money they made as a lead-in for a sales pitch. These are reels and posts that come with claims like “Create a Seven-Figure Heart-led Business!” and “How I made turned a revenue of two million dollars with my coaching business!” or “My first 30k month!”. These posts are accompanied by links to webinars, courses and membership programs. Whether Tik-Tok or Instagram or any other platform, it’s no secret that membership programs and courses are a key part of an online diversified income stream.
Look, I am all for earning money through sharing your knowledge, expertise and skills online. I have been part of online courses, I have found amazing, creative women through Instagram and learnt about writing, poetry, transformative justice and yoga. There are sincere, genuine coaches and creatives out there, people who seek an anti-capitalist praxis to their work through an ethics that centres accessibility and affordability, all while honouring their own knowledge, time and labour. This resonates with me because I’m a big believer in interrogating our relationship to capitalist norms, particularly when it comes to money and material possessions; how much do we really need? How can we detangle our worth from wealth and belongings? How can we learn to live on less? How can we undo our Pavlov impulse to follow trends? To want more? To undo envy and competition and find more space for sharing and gratitude? It’s fucking hard in a world where it feels like we’re bombarded with messaging that insists our worth can be measured by the belongings in our apartment.
What irks me is how many life coaches use money as a bait for potential clients, centring wealth accumulation and materialism. It particularly irks me when this marketing tactic comes accompanied with a claim to decolonial practices that insist their individual wealth is evidence of systemic change. In the words of Audre Lorde, “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”
There’s a few savvy coaches who have hooked onto the marketing power of social justice issues around race and gender, leveraging the language of critical theory and decoloniality for marketing business courses and coaching. This approach separates powerful structural arguments from their political-social realm and repurposes them into the individual space. It separates the issue of sovereignty from land and resources and into the self. It pulls away from a critique of structural issues to make YOU the structure that needs dismantling.
In this space, the language of radical politics and revolution becomes neoliberalised into promoting a revolution of the self and radical personal growth — with successful growth measured by money, not social change. It is a compelling argument to make, particularly in the face of economic precarity amid a pandemic. Money does provide security, especially as we continue to spin into neoliberal economies (and techno-feudalism). This can all feel overwhelming; the challenges seem unsurpassable and change appears beyond our reach. So, when the external world feels out of control, then we do start seeking control within ourselves.
Yet, it’s a slippery slope, particularly when the struggle to access coaching programs is posited as a “you” problem. That is, if you want to do the course badly enough then you will do whatever it takes to do it. One coach boasted about how a client took on a second job as an Uber driver to pay for their coaching course because “that’s how dedicated they are.” I can’t help but turn it around: if your course isn’t accessible, then shouldn’t you reconsider your pricing plans? Couldn’t you offer scholarships? An argument against scholarship I’ve seen within the life coaching world is that scholarships do not create commitment: people take free things for granted and paying ensures commitment. It loops back into reinforcing the status quo - that value is measured by money — rather than seeking to cultivate alternative models of working, sharing, earning and educating.
The logic is that keeps popping up is this: these are transactional relationships and price is evidence of worth.
Life coaching — like self-help — is an American export. It shaped by cultural holy grails such as hyper-individualism, wealth accumulation, cult of celebrity/personality, and value defined by financial success. All that we do for ourselves - from self-care to therapy to retreats to coaching is for one purpose - to get better at making money.
So, life coaches will show you that they make the money.
3. “It alerted me to this idea that he’s really spreading these super problematic ideas and these enormous promises to vulnerable people in a way that’s really predatory.”
Cults of personality are scary and I am suspicious of anything that elevates the supremacy of the individual. It’s the clearest way to figure out if something reeks: is there a big personality at the centre who commands everyone’s sense of reality by offering easy answers to complex issues? Yes? Then ask questions. Big, critical questions. Or run.
Any solution that doesn’t attempt to make room for the dynamic, intersecting nature of life, is a product.
A life coach is a business, and the product is themselves. Life coaches package and sell who they are: this includes their business knowledge, their emotional labour, their personal life. So, if coaching is product you want to buy, then go for it. Be clear about what you want from it. Shop around for a coach that suits you. Sometimes, it’ll work and sometimes it won’t. But don’t go broke for a coach. Don’t sink your savings into a coach. Protect yourself from the predatory marketing tactics of life coaching. Not all life coaches are cult leaders but all life coaches are products.
The pandemic has made many of us terribly vulnerable, isolated and stuck online. We want connection and care. It’s been two years of uncertainty and stagnation, and we want growth and development. We need to believe we can still have control over our lives. We see an uncertain future and we’re all looking for answers.
Genuine potential solutions are not products. There are no easy answers for life.
Trying to figure out ourselves — and how to live on this earth with harmony — is effort. It involves structures of support in society. It involves movements that celebrate the earth, not money. It involves living, dynamic ecosystems of people trying, succeeding, working, failing, supporting, talking, experimenting and thinking. It involves being part of community with all its love and imperfections.
We don’t need life coaches, we need each other.
Notes:
Spinks, Rosie. “What’s the difference between a life coach and a therapist.” https://qz.com/quartzy/1167237/whats-the-difference-between-a-life-coach-and-a-therapist/
Monroe, Rachel. “I’m a life coach, you’re a life coach: the rise of an unregulated industry” https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/06/life-coaching-brooke-castillo-unregulated-industry
Barrett-Ibarria, Sophia. “The disturbing power of the Instagram life coach.” https://www.nylon.com/instagram-life-coach-caroline-calloway
Spratt, Vicky. “These Women Paid An Instagram Influencer To Help Them Manifest Money. Now They’re Not Happy” https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/money-manifesting-life-coaching-instagram