I think that coaching can be a good idea IF you have a concrete goal in mind.  I have never been formally coached, but I did admin work on and off for a coach for about ten years, until he passed away.  During that time I was privileged to receive some of his wisdom and advice, and one of the things he stressed was that coaching is NOT therapy, and if you have any sort of BIG issues holding you back that would best be dealt with in therapy, it would be better to work on healing those before starting the coaching.  He would not take someone's money he felt was not ready.

If you feel for instance, something's holding you back from getting promoted at work - coaching could be a good idea.  If you keep getting fired because you can't get along with people, that's more of a therapy issue.  Etc...

Currently I have a long time friend who is involved with nutrition who is trying to recruit "health coaches". I went to his web page and saw all of these nutrition bars, powders, etc. for sale. I did some research and found out that this company is a kin to a multilevel marketing scheme. Albeit a successful one. If someone follows the program they are supposed to loose weight. The catch is the program costs around $300 a month. You have to first go through the program, then go to training to be a coach. It reminded of a highly organized relgion. What caused me to get turned off by it was the cost. The question I have is coaching vs. counseling. Which is more effective?