How to become a Life Coach

If you've found this description from a Google search, I assume that you are already well-known with what a life coach is. Even if you are, reading my description "What is a Life Coach" will contribute you with primary information on what exactly a life coach does, how coaching contracts work, what typical coaching formats look like and how you might want to focus your firm as you consider becoming a coach.

This description is geared towards the logistics on what you can do to come to be a life coach and start your own business.

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What Credentials do I Need?

At the risk of turning population off to life coaching in this article, I am going to give you the facts about population that are calling themselves coaches. Truth be told - there are No job requirements to come to be a coach. Sounds scary huh? Put a sign up, print some firm cards, call yourself a life coach and you are good to go. Pretty easy firm to build eh?

Lets take a bit of a closer look here. What I am certainly saying is that by law, no pro certification is required for someone to call him or herself a life coach - or coach (often the word 'life' is whether omitted or replaced with a separate word such as 'executive', 'wellness', 'lifestyle management' or 'business'). So unlike a psychologist, a physical therapist, registered dietician, a contractor, or a lawyer, the state and country (Usa) does not identify a life coach as a credentialed profession. Therefore, no license is required to call yourself a coach (at least as of the date this description is posted).

Lets look at some other examples of similar professions that might fall into the same category. How about that big one of 'consultant'. There are lots of consultants out there consulting on everything you can think of - typically a advisor needs no license to be a consultant, just taste doing so. Similar to a coach, a advisor with no taste at all can draft up a firm card and start doing business. Of procedure the big question is whether or not you'd be able to sell whatever on your services given that background. A computer advisor would probably have problem selling themselves if they knew nothing about computers!

Before Calling Yourself a Coach...

If you are intending to call yourself a coach, please understand what it means to give yourself that title. Without government regulations, I admit you can stake your claim at coachhood with relative ease, however its a discredit to the professionals with years of taste and training if you naturally use the word as an allure for clients and in any way you are misrepresenting what the coaching profession is all about. I'd recommend reading a coaches code of ethics to see if what you are gift could truly be determined coaching.

One problem that I see is that many population who are misrepresenting the profession do not even identify what it means to be a coach. I've seen Mlm (multi-level marketing) associates give their marketers buttons to put on their shirt stating 'Wellness Coach' - when all they know is a integrate of herbal supplements that the firm sells. I've seen Real Estate Agents call themselves 'Real Estate Coaches' because they wanted to differentiate themselves from the crowd of agents. Clearly these population are marketing themselves as coaches with microscopic understanding of what a coach certainly does. If you've read this far it shows you've got a true interest in becoming an ethical coach and I've no doubt that you are doing your homework!

What Background do I need?

This is an challenging question. Coaches come from all backgrounds. As previously mentioned there are coaches in the condition and wellness world, in the executive amelioration world, relationship coaches, coaches for families with children that have special needs, stress management coaches - the list goes on and on. Of procedure there are many coaches that cross pollinate and have any areas they focus on.

If you choose to focus your coaching on a specific area - lets say 'parenting troubled teens', then its a good idea that you've got a background of working with troubled teens so that you can best understand your client. Now a pure life coach is committed to recognizing that a client has their own answers and that the coaches job is to empower the client such that they see this clearly for themselves. Therefore, a coach is a generalist - their training and skill is certainly in communicating with population such that they can identify and build suitable goals and actions that fulfill their dreams. If you naturally have this skill, you've got the greatest asset that a life coach needs. Some population have an innate tendency to 'be coach'. If you don't naturally have this skill, rest assured that wish practice you can design it.

What study if any Should I Get?

If you are inspecting becoming a coach, I without fail recommend that you get training. A coach training agenda often has coaching and mentorship not only on how to be a best coach, but also on how to build your business. whether or not you choose to go straight through a full coach training certification agenda is a big decision as it will typically involve a commitment of 1-3 years, up to ,000, and will need that you procure in the middle of one and two hundred client hours to come to be certified. Prices, times to certification, and agenda depth and intensity vary greatly dependent on the agenda you choose.

Typically after an first class, you are encouraged to begin enrolling coaching clients. Therefore, you can charge what you are comfortable charging while you are going straight through the certification process (remember, you don't need a license to be a coach). I wish I knew the division of professional's out there calling themselves 'coaches' that have gone straight through a certification program. I am sure that someone's put an estimation out there but I've yet to find it. My suspicion is that it is less than 1/3 of all coaches. So being a 'certified' coach differentiates you for sure, however at the occasion a typical coaching client probably would not know the difference.

If you elected not to come to be certified, my recommendation would be that you take some first courses, come to be well-known and comfortable with what coaching is, then try your hand on clients willing to work with you. If these classes are too expensive, read straight through this whole blog, read as many books as you can find on coaching and design a toolset which you can stake claim to and favorably use to team with clients to promote their advancement and self discovery. Make yourself an expert coach based on the knowledge of what a coach is and what they do.

I remember having a conversation with one woman that a friend referred to me. She wanted to turn careers, she was very concerned in life coaching and she felt she had been coaching friends and co-workers for years. She did have a good understanding of what life coaching was. Furthermore she said she new a estimate of population that would be willing to pay her for coaching! As I coached her, all she needed to hear was herself confirming that it was Ok to get started - even if she had doubts and worries as to what a formal coaching session would look like. She had a remarkable motivation to learn regardless of whether or not that would be in the framework of a credential agenda (and I don't know if she elected to enroll in one).

What is the Icf

The Icf (International Coach Federation) is the prominent coach credentialing division on the market. Many coaches have opted to come to be a member of the Icf (by paying an every year fee to be a member), but this is certainly not a requirement to be a coach. The Icf is strongly supportive of coaching becoming a licensed field - similar as to what you see with psychologists etc. Clearly they have incentive as they would be the prominent credentialing division and this would greatly increase their membership. Many coaches believe that this will come to fruition in the next 5-10 years. At that point in time its likely we'd see a large decrease in the estimate of population calling themselves coaches as well as an increase in the credibility and the stature of the industry.

I present this because if you did elect to go straight through a coach training program, the Icf provides a list of programs that are accredited. By training straight through one of these accredited programs, it is unbelievable that your certification would be grandfathered into the status of a certified coach should a license come to be required. This might be one thing to consider as you survey what level of training and study you would like to participate in as well as who provides that training.

In Summary

To summarize, if you've been inspecting becoming a pro coach (life coach), its prominent to educate yourself on what a coach is and is not. There is a lot of information on the internet available (much on this site) that can contribute you with a foundation for understanding coaching models and how to 'be coach'.

Legally, at this point in time, there are no requirements to procure a certification or license for someone to begin calling themselves a coach (in that regards, it's similar to consulting). If you would like to begin coaching on a specific topic, its great to have a background on that topic but make sure that you know why you are differentiating what you are doing as coaching rather than consulting.

Educationally there are many coach training programs available. I recommend that you attend at least some coaching courses (or hire your own coach) such that you begin to understand how coaching works. If you do elect to go with a coach training program, a good thing to consider would be whether or not is is recognized by the International Coach Federation such that you will not to come to be re-certified in the future should this come to be an manufactures requirement.

I hope this answers your first set of questions on how to come to be a life coach - I am sure it will lead to more questions. I'll contribute more coaching tips, tools and suggestions throughout the procedure of the year on this website- so visit often. Till then...

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Be Well

How to become a Life Coach