How to Become a Life Coach – The Complete Career Guide

This step by step article will give you the information and knowledge to shape the foundations of your life coaching career. Full-time life coaching can be a hugely successful and rewarding industry. A life coach can help clients reach their full potential on both a professional and personal level.

If you enjoy helping and empowering people to achieve their own goals, this is the one-stop career guide for you. As part of the complete career guide to life coaching, there are 5 essential steps outlined below to take note of. These steps will guide you on your journey and ensure you have the knowledge and coaching skills to kick-start your career.

Read this article on more counselling careers you can undertake.

Before you get started, you need to ask yourself some important questions. Are you passionate about helping others achieve their dreams and goals? Are you a person who is superior at understanding the needs of people and guiding them appropriately towards changing their lives? A life coach is a mentor and somebody you can turn to for advice and knowledge. They provide the confidence and motivation that people need to create a positive change in their lives.

It is very important as a life coach to guide people in the right direction and always maintain a transparent and professional attitude. Every person is different with a unique set of challenges, therefore an outstanding life coach is adaptable and versatile in their own coaching methods.

Successful life coaches possess great communication skills and always maintain a friendly and positive relationship with their clients. If these sound like you, then becoming a life coach can be a very rewarding industry, as your professional life consists of helping your clients reach their goals in their own life.

You will also need to undertake a counselling course to become a life coach.

The Life Coaching industry can be both general and specialist in nature. Every Life coach should be trained as a generalist coach; however, most life coach’s will discover that they are drawn to a particular specialist area of coaching. This is because people encounter different challenges at different stages of their life.

For example, development and growth may be of paramount importance for a young athlete but injury prevention and endurance training may be more suited for an older professional athlete.

To determine which specialisation may be suited to you it is important to realise what areas of expertise you are drawn too. Furthermore, if you have ever had any background experience in a specific area or coaching before.

Check out this article for the complete career guide on becoming an online counsellor.

Here are some (but not all) of the various life coaching specialties:

Becoming a certified life coach is the first step towards getting started into a specialist life coaching role where you can work on your coaching passion and maintain your own set of clients.

There are several online training programs and certifications you can complete to become a recognised and accredited life coach. Although on some rare occasions, these qualifications may not be necessary, there are a few reasons why obtaining one may be a preferred. First, earning a certification and accreditation can go a long way in gaining the trust of your potential clients.

Credentials from legitimate professional associations, such as the International Coach Federation (ICF) require a high degree of expertise and a demonstration of a high work standard to be successful in completion. Secondly, a credential and nationally recognised accreditation will provide your life coaching clients with the confidence and peace of mind to seek out your services as well as have faith in the advice that is given to them.

Finally, from this confidence and testimonials from your clients, this can lead to referrals for you from other friends and family experiencing similar challenges. In turn your coaching services and know-how will help clients recognise you and therefore help you gain a reputable name in your coaching career.

Before getting started working as a professional accredited life coach it is important to research and gain a solid understanding of this particular industry. A few questions to ask yourself before you get started:

The main objective of life coaches to stay financially sound is to gain and maintain clients a constant stream of clients. To do so it is important to note how you will operate in the coaching industry.

The best way to gain an understanding is to network with other certified coaches and the various way they offer their services in the industry. Becoming a qualified life coach allows you to interact and learn from mentors in the field and gain an understanding of the coaching sessions that they provide.

To be a successful life coach you must have a consistent client base and the ability to attract new clients either through various marketing channels or by word of mouth. A successful life coach ensures that his/her clients are achieving their goals and that they are given the best advice/knowledge to succeed.

A crucial step for up and coming life coaches is the use of social media and online platforms to reach out to potential clients. A crucial step in your business is deciding on pricing for your services and to create ideal coaching packages that tailor solutions to common challenges faced by your clients. An example would be by showing them exactly what they are buying in terms of their coaching sessions.

Free online posts on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn is a great starting point. Furthermore, word of mouth and positive feedback/testimonials from clients are a great way to gain a foothold in the marketplace and local community as this gives new clients the confidence they need to hire you as their life coach.