Are you a helpful person? Do you want to make the lives of other people better? If the answer to the questions is “yes”, you should consider taking up a career as a life coach.
Life coaches work with their clients to help them achieve their life goals, overcome the obstacles they face in their work, personal, and social lives and create a remarkable turning point in their lives.
Types of life coaches
A life coach may handle any type of client, depending on what type of life coach he or she is. The client can be a single person or a group of people or an organization. There are many different types of life coaches. Some of them are:
- General Life Coaches
- Life Balance Coaches
- Health Coaches
- Small Business Coaches
- Executive Coaches
- Personal Finance Coaches
- Relationship Coaches
What is their general method of working?
Life coaches take sessions with their clients via three main mediums. They are:
- Telephone
- Video Conferencing
- Face to face counseling
Life coaches expect their clients to remember each and every session taken by them. Before starting a new session, life coaches ask their clients, questions based on their previous session because their sessions will be rendered useless if their clients don’t implement them.
Wisely planning the transition into a life coach career
Most of the working-class people don’t have the money to hire a life coach, even for a few months. So how can they plan their lives and achieve their life goals? Self-learning is the only way.
They have to look up the qualities of a good life coach on the internet and implement those qualities to achieve their own life goals. It takes a lot of discipline, hard work, and self-control but it can be done. A few people have already achieved their life goals by self-leaning.
Only if one is absolutely sure that he or she has what it takes to become a life coach, one should take up life-coaching as a career, else they should look for other options.
“Most people won’t have a professional coach for most of their lives. I typically work with people for a year to a year and a half. So being your own coach is a great idea”, says Marshall Goldsmith, Ph.D. in Philosophy.
Discovering your life coaching aptitude
A good life coach must have the following qualities:
1.Accountability: While life coaches help their clients by giving them lots of useful advice, clients must also be responsible enough to implement their advice. Otherwise, the sessions taken will be rendered useless.
A good life coach must get in touch with his or her clients at least once a week to check if his or her clients remember what has been taught and to check if they are making progress in their attitude, approach and way of thinking. A life coach must hold his or her clients accountable for the progress they make.
2. Orienting clients: A good life coach should be able to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of his or her clients well and set them suitable goals so that they make more money and structure their professional and personal lives very well.
Life coaches should make their clients more productive in as little time as possible. They should induce an appropriate and clear vision in the minds of their clients. Their clients should understand clearly, the purpose of their sessions and how it helps them achieve their life’s goals.
3. Motivate clients: A good life coach must give appropriate advice to his or her clients so that they are motivated to achieve their life goals and change their outlook for the better.
The clients must understand clearly, the positive impacts their final goal will make on their lives as well as on the lives of other people, including their loved ones. This understanding will make them work harder towards achieving their life’s goals as they will feel a sense of self-worth and responsibility.
4. Create a turning point: A life coach’s clients must have evolved significantly after their sessions with their life coach. Their mental outlook, approach to problems, problem-solving capabilities, goal orientation, and helping tendency must all have changed for the better.
What qualities do life coaches have?
If you feel you can do the below-mentioned tasks, you can certainly become a life coach.
- Maintain the confidentiality of your clients: The credibility of your business depends on this. Your clients open up to you because they trust that you will keep their data confidential and will make them better in all aspects.
If you breach that trust, you will start to lose your clients and your reputation. You must not reveal their private information under any circumstances and for anyone.
2. Be empathetic and not sympathetic to your clients: You must not be too emotionally attached to your client’s problems. This can prevent you from bettering them, which is the main objective of your sessions with them.
You must listen to their problems, give your advice and ensure that they are implementing it. It is the only way you can help them achieve their life’s goals.
3. Be frank with your clients: You must analyze, discover, and convey the actual problem with your clients and you must establish the thumb rules before you start your sessions with the clients.
The faults with your clients can be hard for them to accept at first but it’s only a temporary difficulty. Going forward, it will become easier for them to accept and rectify their faults.
Conveying your clients’ shortcomings frankly is the only way for your clients to rectify them and make themselves better. You will feel satisfied as their life coach if your clients overcome their defects and become a better person in life.
4. You must be sure of your career goals: You must dig deep within yourself and ask yourself why you want to become a life coach. How exactly do you want to help people and are you truly capable of helping them in that way?
If you are certain of your goals and your capabilities, you can become a great life coach.
5. Keep yourself updated: Both the world and people’s problems are constantly evolving. Therefore, you need to be updated with the problems people face. Only then will you be able to identify and address them.
Doing additional courses like Psychology, Counselling, etcetera will help in your career as a life coach. You can take up regular quizzes at websites like study.com to see if you can and want to become a life coach.
Top 10 life coaching institutes
These institutes offer courses like Life Coach Course, Life Purpose Course, Professional Life Coach Course, Happiness Life Coach Course, etcetera. Doing any course from these institutions can make you a good and qualified life coach.
- Co-Active
- Bowling Congress
- Scoregetter
- USA Ultimate
- Institute of Coaching
- Life Coach Institute of Orange County
- WiNGS
- Northwest Coaching Group
- Life Coaching Institute of America
- CTI
To get a better idea of what life coaching courses to do in which institutes, kindly watch this video.
What do clients really want?
Clients expect the following from their life coaches:
- To make them believe that they can achieve their life goals and that they have what it takes to achieve their life goals.
- To point of their drawbacks in a frank and polite manner so that they can improve upon it.
- To constantly remind them of their goals.
- To show them that they have control to shape their lives the way they want to.
Types of Life Coaching Certifications
They are necessary to make one a qualified Life Coach. Life Coaching has become a regulated profession in many countries.
Hence, one needs a certificate to become a professional life coach in many countries. It is always better to learn a profession in a structured manner.
Certificates will always give a person, professional security. They will better a person in many aspects and help him or her help other people in many ways. Life Coaching Certifications can be given on various niches. They are:
- Personal Coaching
- Religious Coaching
- Career Coaching
- Health and Wellness Coaching
- Life Coaching
- Neuro-Linguistic Programming Coaching
- Relationship Coaching
- Wealth Coaching
- Business Coaching
- Mentor Coaching
- Miscellaneous Coaching
Each of these niches includes a variety of certification programs. Some of them are:
- Certified Career Coach (CCC)
- Certified Financial Coach (CFC)
- Certified Health and Wellness Coach (CHWC)
- Certified Career Transition Coach (CTC)
- Certified Diet Coach (CDC)
- Certified Vegan Fitness Coach (CVFC)
- Certified Success Coach (CSC)
- Certified Mind Adjustment Coach (CMAC)
- Certified Relationship Repair Coach (CRRC)
- Certified Business Startup Coach (CBSC)
How life-coaching is a two-way process?
Clients want clarity in their goals and knowledge on how to achieve them. A life coach must analyze the strengths and weaknesses of his clients accurately and set appropriate goals for them.
He must also ensure the implementation of his advice. It is the only way progress can be made. The responsibility to develop clients must be shared equally between the life coach and his or her clients.
I had hired a life-work balance coach cum finance coach once. He held face to face sessions with me once every week (on Sundays). He gave me sound advice and set me realistic tasks and goals.
He also ensured that I implemented his advice/lessons before starting a new session with me. Thanks to him, I am now able to spend quality time with my family as well as complete my official tasks on time.
My finances are also in good shape. I had bought a quiet villa as my would-be home after retirement a few months back and I have also saved enough money for my daughter’s wedding.
My life is on track to becoming a responsible and satisfying one and it’s all thanks to my coach. I would strongly suggest that you hire a genuine life coach as well.
The advice that a coach gives should be agreed upon mutually. The client must understand its purpose. It should never be imposed on the client. The responsibility of decision making must be shared between the life coach and the client.
If the entire responsibility of decision making is transferred to the life coach, clients may become even more unhappy in the end because they might end up doing something they didn’t want to or don’t fully understand yet.
Creating specific packages to solve problems
Once you have decided and qualified to become a life coach, you must custom package your sessions because some of your clients may need only a part of your service.
For example, if you have qualified to become a professional as well as a happiness life coach, your client/s may be interested only in your happiness services and will be willing to pay only for that. By customizing your services, you can attract and serve more clients.
Your clients will get what they want only if you customize your services. Otherwise, most of your classes will be useless to your clients.
Start Marketing Yourself
Money is very important these days. Apart from having the skills required to become a life coach, you must also market yourself properly. It is the only way you can attract clients by the millions and earn more money.
If you apply the below-mentioned principles, you can also be recognized as a great life coach and gain popularity. I came to know about my life coach and his services purely due to the quality of his marketing. After reading his ad, I was convinced that his sessions would help me in a big way.
Have a refund policy
If your clients are not satisfied with your sessions or the results, promptly refund their fees. It is one of the ways of satisfying them and building your reputation. You should always have a service mentality.
It should always be service first and payment later. People should not feel that you are a cheater or a fraud.
Understand your client’s expectations clearly
Before you start your sessions with your clients you must communicate the basic rules/your expectations clearly to them and must also understand their expectations clearly.
It is the only way you can deliver what they want and satisfy them. Client satisfaction is detrimental to the success of your business. Without it, your business is bound to collapse soon.
Learn continuously from your experience
Every client and his or her problems are unique. You can learn a lot of things by handling many clients. You can apply the things you learned from one client in the sessions with another client.
This will enhance your efficiency, effectiveness, and even popularity. You must not become egoistic and latch on to what you have learned in your courses. You must be open-minded and flexible with your clients while at the same time ensuring that they are implementing your suggestions.
Have your blog with your videos to attract more clients
People or institutions that have their blogs, especially with videos, are considered more genuine by people. Embedding videos in your blog is a great way to make people understand clearly how they will benefit by taking your sessions.
After all, a person’s voice is more trusted than just text. People will judge your caliber by the way you speak. Of course, you must also live up to your expectations, otherwise, your business will shut down soon.
Network with other coaches
You don’t have to work with your clients all alone and you do not need to see your competitors as your enemies. You may be good at certain aspects of life coaching and your competitors may be good in certain other aspects.
You can depend on your clients’ needs, refer them to other life coaches (your network) and other coaches in your network may do the same to you. This way, clients can be satisfied on all fronts and you can also earn money regularly.
Have a catchy marketing USP in your blog
Your USP should state what aspects of life coaching you specialize in and how clients with specific needs will benefit by taking sessions with you. If you offer services that are unique to you, it will fetch you a lot more clients.
Hold regular sessions with your clients
In business, punctuality and regularity are everything. You must hold regular sessions with your clients (ideally once a week) and ensure that they are implementing your advice. A few lapses in your regularity could spell doom for your reputation and your business.
You may relocate to where your potential clients are
Using various websites, you can analyze where your potential clients are located and it would be advantageous to you if you relocate to those places.
You can easily hold face to face interviews if required if you relocate to your potential clients’ location.
How much do life coaches charge?
This entirely depends on your popularity. Very popular life coaches charge up to the US $5000 per session, which lasts an hour. Freshers charge 5 to 50 US dollars per session. So you should also follow suit accordingly.
A few popular life coaches as of 2019
There are quite a few popular life coaches in the US as of 2019. Some of them are:
- Dr. Lisa Hill: She specializes in helping people identify their fears and shortcomings and ultimately, overcoming them. She takes her sessions via Skype or phone calls.
- Robin Hall: His sessions are always fun for his clients. He specializes in relieving people’s stress via fun activities and workouts.
- Dan Stevens: He always holds face to face sessions with his clients. He specializes in helping people find suitable careers, healthy relationships, and success in their business.
- Brandy Jhonson: He specializes in assisting couples in resolving their differences peacefully and making them proceed with their lives amidst difficulties.
- 5. Dr. Beverly Thompson: He specializes in making people learn from their failures. He always teaches people not to get dejected by failures as they hold valuable life lessons for people. If they learn those lessons, they become a much better person in life.
Conclusion
Every person must have a goal in his or her life and work towards achieving it. Only then his or her life will become meaningful. After all, we are not animals who just eat to survive.
If a person hires a life coach to achieve his or her life’s goals, he or she must also be responsible enough to implement the lessons that have been taught. Only then progress can be made towards achieving one’s life goals. Lest all the sessions will be rendered useless and time will be wasted. Discipline, hard work, and self-control are a must if a person wishes to become successful in life.
FAQs
1. What is the difference between life coaching and therapy?
Unlike psychologists or psychotherapists, life coaches do not consider your past for giving you sessions. They work on your weaknesses and the present situation only.
2. Are clients totally dependant on their life coaches?
No, they only take advice from them until the duration of their course. Life Coaches are flexible with their advice and their implementation. They are open to clients’ suggestions.
So the responsibility to improve their clients is shared between them. Hence, life coaches’ clients are not totally dependant on them.
3. Why do successful people hire a life coach?
Money is important in today’s world but it isn’t everything. People may need help with their relationships and happiness in life. So even, highly successful people, who have everything anyone could want are not necessarily happy.
4. Why has life coaching become so popular?
People these days want to do something special with their lives. They are not satisfied with doing their routine job. Hence, they hire a life coach to help them figure out what it is that they want to do or can do.
