Get it together.

Life-coach: google it and you'll find about 6,620,000 results. Definitions range from "an advisor who helps people with problems, decisions, and goal attainment in daily life" (thanks, Webster) to providing "creative common sense" in life situations (from, you guessed it "Creativecommonsense.us").

What I don't understand is how any reasonable person can that think hiring someone else, except perhaps a licensed medical professional, to solve one's problems is a wise investment. Isn't the difficulty facing most Americans that we rely on outside forces for our motivation? Fat? Get a gastric-bypass. Lazy? Claim it's a genetic disorder. If there's an excuse, make it. Don't have self-motivation? Get someone to tell you what to do! And these life-coaches do not require licensing or supervision, because they don't technically provide psychotherapy. This is the court ruling even though most of these coaches do focus on goals like "managing your emotional state" and "conflict resolution," which both sound like the province of clinical counseling to me. If there were ever a way for one person to abuse and manipulate another, it is this situation.

And that doesn't even take into account the fact that these uncredentialed "coaches" often display disturbing personality traits of their own and are generally annoying. For example, almost all of these "life-coaches" use the Royal We, even when they are clearly one person taking a picture of themselves in someone's kitchen. If that's not the hallmark of a narcissist, I don't know what is. In fact, who other than a narcissist could present themselves as the answer to your problem in the first place?

Of course, you may disagree, and say the use of pronouns is just a stylistic choice. (I disagree. Pronouns are a sacred part of the language and should be treated with care, just like any other part of speech.) Then what about their hyperbolic claims on their CVs? Like this one, from "Charles":

"I've coached athletes, performers, and public speakers into peak performance. I've led individuals from career cul-de-sacs into the dream job superhighway. I've succeeded at everything I've ever put my mind to. That means my life is one string of soaring successes after another."

Call me a cynic, but I don't trust someone who claims he's succeeded at "everything" he's ever put his mind to and characterizes his life as "one string of soaring successes after another." (Not to mention the last bit is grammatically dubious in its adjective placement: it should read "a string of one soaring success after another." Yes, it does really come down to word choice.) If I want someone with delusions of grandeur, I'll talk to Han Solo. I definitely won't pay him $100 an hour to instill and maintain in me my own unrealistic views of existence.

Or this one, from "Ryan":

"It is time for the 'Light Workers' of the world to join together to raise the vibration of the Universal Consciousness."

Not only does that sound more than a little like a sex act, it's characteristic of the vagueness of these "coaches." How does vibrating the Universal Consciousness - apart from probably giving the ole gal a good thrill on a Saturday night - solve the fact that you procrastinate chronically, or that you have abandonment issues because of your childhood?

The straight fact is that it doesn't. I'm a supporter of professional counseling and therapy, precisely because therapists (at least, good ones) are straightforward: if you don't want to achieve your goals, you won't, and nobody can help or make you. And therapists are licensed and educated. But anyone, even a narcissistic grammar-abuser taking his own headshot in a crowded kitchen, can set up a jokey website and charge unsuspecting souls $100+ an hour (which, by the way, is more than I pay my doctorate-holding counselor). $100 an hour to get life advice from someone who has apparently solved all his problems and is now moving on to solve yours.

Now that's something you need help with.