If you’re that one friend that people always come to for advice, then you might have the aptitude for becoming a certified life coach. Sure, you might feel intimidated at first with how much information you’ll have to digest to fill that position, but it shouldn’t be hard for you to acquire that knowledge if you already enjoy helping people. However, like everything certified in life, becoming a certified life coach can only be achieved with formal training and a considerable experience after that for you to become a trustworthy life coach. So, if you want to know how to do this, this guide explores in detail the steps you need to follow.
Choose Your Area of Expertise
Life coaching is an impressively vast field, so professionals are required to choose an area to specialize in to become more proficient at helping customers. Clients, after all, are here for advice and they don’t want to experience unpleasant situations in which they discover that they visited the wrong life coach. The areas of specialization include, but are not limited to:
- Work-life balance
- Financial coaching
- Romantic relationships
- Weight loss
- Career coaching
- Mental health coaching
Look for the Right Training Program
Being a life coach means that you’re going to help people explore their capabilities and talents so they can utilize these in their daily lives. You are expected to do this daily, so you have to become certified to help your clients gain access to their untapped potentials. Training helps you do this by learning the basic concepts of psychological evaluation and also learning how to give a valid assessment for your client’s dire situation. Of course, this should be complemented with your work ethics and excellent communication skills, as these elements are going to be the main tools used for communication with your clients. Don’t, however, sign yourself up for the first training program you lay your eyes on, as some online programs are not accredited by popular industry associations like the International Coaching Federation (ICF). In short, training programs that are not accredited won’t add up to your credibility.
Work Hard on Getting Your Credentials
While you’re training to become a life coach, you should work hard to establish excellent work standards, as this will be your way to get credentials from well-known associations, as we have mentioned before, like the ICF and the International Association of Coaching. Certifications will increase the trust of your services; hence, you will get more potential clients. Make sure, however, that you meet the required conditions of these certifications. For example, you’ll have to undergo about 500 hours’ worth of coaching experience under your belt to get the Professional Certified Coach certification offered by the ICF. This must include 450 paid hours, a minimum of 25 clients, and successful completion of the Coach Knowledge Assessment. The latter touches on your knowledge regarding listening skills, ethical guidelines, and coaching agreements. On the other hand, other certifications require that you submit recordings of your sessions for you to be evaluated. In any case, you will have to look up the requirements first to know whether or not you can receive any certification.
Learn More About Your Business
Like all businesses, life coaching requires another skill set besides the one that you already acquired from the training. These skills, however, are more on the general side and are necessary in other fields, so obtaining them is a must to achieve a long-lasting and prosperous career.
Marketing
It is easy to find marketing services to carry out your campaign for you. They certainly make things easier for you by incorporating your vision in their marketing strategies to attract more potential clients. You might also want to use digital marketing since most clients make their purchasing decisions based on ads they find on the internet.
Administration
The administration is an integral part of your work which will be performed by none other than you. Some of these skills are: managing your website, mailing list, client communication outside sessions, and billing. Since this part of your job is tightly related to your work, you should perform them yourself instead of automating or outsourcing these tasks.
Becoming a life coach is a long journey that requires aptitude and talent for you to garner the other necessary skills along the way. Although it might seem like an arduous journey and a long path, your goal will be rewarding. With the right training program and the skills necessary for the job, you’ll certainly be able to practice your dream job.
