The Productivity Coach Scam: Why I Paid $3,000 to Hate Myself

Yes, I paid a stranger $3,000 to tell me to wake up at 5 a.m. and drink mushroom water. No, it didn’t make me a millionaire. And yes, I hate myself a little bit more now.

When your squat form is strong but your life choices are questionable.

What Is a Productivity Coach, and Why Do They Exist?

If you’ve ever wondered “Is a productivity coach just a therapist who can’t legally call themselves a therapist?”—you are correct.

Imagine a person who failed upward in corporate middle management, then rebranded themselves as a “performance optimization consultant,” which is fancy speak for “someone who reads Atomic Habits out loud to you for $300 an hour.”

I found mine on Instagram, nestled between a sponsored ad for a $99 gratitude journal and a woman in a power suit whispering that I was wasting my “zone of genius.”

Here’s a fun fact: most productivity coaches have no clinical credentials, no track record of building anything successful, and no clue how to manage their own time. You’re basically paying to be nagged by someone who also doesn’t finish their to-do list.

Why I Thought I Needed One (The Dark Night of My To-Do List)

It started, like most modern tragedies, with a color-coded spreadsheet.

I was convinced my life was a flaming dumpster because I didn’t have the right “systems.” My inbox was a horror show, my mornings started at 11:47 a.m., and I was genuinely afraid of the voicemail icon on my phone.

In my defense, I’d been consuming a steady diet of YouTube videos with titles like:

• “5 AM Morning Routines That Guarantee Wealth”

• “How I Manifested My Business Empire in 60 Days”

• “You’re Broke Because You Have No Discipline (And Probably No Friends)”

  
  

After 40 hours of this brainwashing, I decided the only thing standing between me and self-actualization was paying a random woman named Sabrina to text me daily affirmations.

The First Call: “Your Energy Is Just…Scattered.”

The onboarding call was like an MLM sales pitch crossed with a Catholic confession.

Sabrina asked me to list everything I’d failed to accomplish in my life. She called this a “clarity audit.” I called it “emotional waterboarding.”

Then she said something I’ll never forget:

“Your energy is just…scattered. You need to embody the identity of a successful person.”

This is productivity-coach-speak for “You are a disaster. Please wire me $3,000.”

I was too ashamed to admit I had no clue what “embodying success” meant. So I paid her. Like a coward.

The Homework That Broke Me

She assigned me a “morning alignment ritual.” This included:

• Waking up at 5:00 a.m. (to “beat the sun into submission”)

• Drinking 16 ounces of lemon water (the lemon was non-negotiable)

• Writing three pages about “my vision”

• Walking barefoot on grass (I live in a condo)

• Spending 20 minutes “tapping into abundance” (translation: thinking about money while chanting)

  
  

On day three, my downstairs neighbor asked why I was pacing the parking lot barefoot at dawn, muttering about passive income.

Toxic Productivity: Why It’s Never Enough

Here’s the problem with productivity culture: it’s never satisfied.

If you wake up at 5 a.m., someone else wakes up at 4.

If you write 1,000 words, someone on LinkedIn wrote 10,000—and made them into a best-selling book.

If you meditate for 10 minutes, some psychopath has been meditating in a cave for a month.

This is how you end up believing you are morally inferior because you don’t cold-plunge before breakfast.

My productivity coach made me feel like my humanity was a defect.

• If I needed to rest, I was “self-sabotaging.”

• If I wanted to enjoy life, I was “resisting expansion.”

• If I asked any questions, I was “in scarcity mindset.”

And she wasn’t alone.

My Sister-in-Law’s $1,000 Journey to Learn How to Say “Please”

As further proof this whole industry is a pantomime of respectability, let’s talk about my sister-in-law.

She spent $1,000—actual money that could have paid for rent, groceries, or a moderately depressing vacation—to access a library of training videos.

The topics were a fever dream of questionable life advice:

• How to speak with good manners, because apparently what separates the aristocracy from the peasants is remembering to say “please” and “thank you.”

• How to exercise, because according to her coach, the only way to attract an “alpha male” is to do air squats until you have the personality of a protein shake.

• A whole buffet of other nonsense that women are told they must master to be fulfilled—like life is a final exam they forgot to study for.

  
  

Women love personal development the way raccoons love shiny trash: it doesn’t matter if it’s valuable, they’ll still haul it home in their little hands.

Are Productivity Coaches a Scam? (Let’s Be Honest)

Let’s do some E-E-A-T here—Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness—because Google loves acronyms.

• My experience: I spent 6 months and thousands of dollars on a coach.

• My expertise: I’ve tested every productivity cult tactic imaginable.

• My authoritativeness: I survived—and I’m telling you the truth.

• My trustworthiness: I have no course to sell you at the end of this article.

Here’s what I know:

• Most productivity coaches are unregulated.

• There’s no accountability for their “results.”

• And there’s no evidence their tactics work for neurodivergent or burned-out adults.

They’re selling you the illusion of control.

How I Finally Fired My Coach (And Reclaimed My Sanity)

One morning, I was voice-noting Sabrina while eating dry cereal over the sink—like the high-achiever I am—and I just…snapped.

She’d said:

“If you can’t stick to your routine, you don’t value your future.”

I realized I do value my future—just not enough to keep paying someone to shame me over my sleep schedule.

So I quit.

She responded with a 17-minute video about how I was “abandoning my higher self.”

Yes, Sabrina, I am. My higher self needs a nap.

What Actually Worked for Me (Real Strategies, No Cult Vibes)

If you want to be more productive without selling your soul, here are the only strategies that didn’t ruin my life:

• Time-blocking in 2-hour chunks. Not color-coded, just blocks.

• Turning off all notifications. Even the dopamine slot machine known as Slack.

• Saying “no” to things I resent. Revolutionary, I know.

• Getting 7 hours of sleep. Wild idea.

• Forgiving myself when I fail. Because shame is not a performance enhancer.

You don’t need a productivity coach. You need to remember you are a human being, not a productivity algorithm.

Why People Fall for Toxic Hustle Culture

Let’s be real: modern work is a nightmare.

You’re expected to be reachable 24/7, monetize every hobby, and maintain an Instagrammable morning routine.

Toxic hustle culture sells you the fantasy that if you optimize your life hard enough, you’ll never feel inadequate again.

Spoiler: you will. Because capitalism has no finish line.

So…Are Productivity Coaches Worth It?

If you are:

• Chronically disorganized

• Financially stable enough to blow a few grand

• And fully prepared for a rollercoaster of shame and mild hallucinations

…then sure. Hire one.

But if you’d rather spend that money on therapy, a vacation, or literally anything else—do it.

You can be a functioning adult without paying someone to text you “Rise and grind, babe.”

What to Do Instead of Hiring a Productivity Coach

Here’s what I recommend if you’re teetering on the brink of booking a discovery call:

1. Audit your schedule yourself. Look for what actually matters.

2. Pick one habit to build. Not twelve.

3. Rest more than you think you should. Seriously.

4. Remember that your worth is not your output.

5. Laugh at the absurdity of it all.

You’re not broken because you can’t maintain a billionaire’s morning routine. You’re just human.

The Final Verdict: Save Your Money (And Your Sanity)

I survived productivity coaching so you don’t have to.

Here’s the snippable, SEO-optimized takeaway:

Productivity coaches often charge thousands to tell you things you already know—and make you feel like a defective robot when you can’t follow through.

If you take anything from this article, let it be this:

You don’t need a stranger’s permission to build a life you enjoy. Watch out for the productivity coach scam.