Well, that’s one way to get through your awkward teenage years.
Instead of a nodding therapist or good ol’ mom and dad, Gen Zers are hiring life coaches — professional cheerleaders who specialize in helping people get through personal or career challenges — to tell them how to live their lives.
Life coaches are typically associated with high-powered execs looking to get an edge at work. But this generation? They need an edge in life, according to recent reports: Professional hiring site Bidvine tells the Guardian it’s seen a 280 percent surge over the past year in life-coach bookings and that more than half of those were made by people 18 to 22 years old. And the International Coaching Federation found that 35 percent of Gen Z respondents have a life coach, in a 2017 survey.
According to Connie Henriquez, a Long Island-based life coach who specializes in young adults, teens come to her with the same problems teens have always had: a desire to fit in, a need to succeed in school and, of course, love problems.
There are some modern twists, such as struggles with social media and self-esteem.
If a client is dwelling on negative Instagram comments, she’ll tell them to move on: “I’ll teach her that the people who left the comments are probably unhappy,” Henriquez says.
Henriquez, who charges $1,297 for her 30-day programs, also assigns what she calls “funwork,” in which her clients write 10 things they love about themselves upon waking up.
While she concedes that therapy- or medical-based mental health care is preferable for more serious problems, such as clinical depression and drug addiction, her young clients like that life coaching is “so solution-oriented,” says Henriquez. “It’s a relief to them to hear someone say that they shouldn’t validate themselves by grades or what other people think of them.”
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Jack, a 19-year-old student who declined to share his last name with The Post for privacy reasons, has seen both sides of the treatment coin: He’s done years of therapy, but for the past year, he’s been seeing Soho-based life coach Trish Barillas. Now, he’s a life-coaching loyalist: Her $175 sessions, he explains, have a more casual atmosphere than therapy. Plus, she can offer him advice, whereas his therapists often wanted him to come to conclusions on his own, he says.
Life coaching helped him decide to transfer schools after his freshman year of college and got him through the death of his family dog.
“I was super upset and emotional, and she gave me a lot of knowledge and advice,” he says. “I walked out of there feeling like I have my right to be sad and upset, but this is something everyone goes through.”
Some might be surprised that youngsters are actively seeking this level of professional help. But Henriquez says not to look a gift horse in the mouth: Teenage years are a great time to seek out guidance.
“Teens are so receptive to information — what would take an adult six months to absorb something and change, kids would learn in a month,” she says. “And what a life changer that is!”
