Life coaches play a crucial role in helping individuals navigate their lives. While the responsibilities of a life coach may seem broad, their work is highly impactful and precise, tailored to each client's unique needs.
If you'd like to help people achieve their goals through life coaching, here's how.
What Exactly Is a Life Coach?
Life coaching is similar to sports coaching. Rather than helping athletes perform to the best of their ability in a sporting event, a life coach works with clients to help them achieve their best in various aspects of their lives.
This could include their personal lives, including how they interact with people, their relationships, and their lifestyle.
Life coaches also help people professionally, whether they're working towards a promotion, looking to change careers, or feeling like they're being held back at work and aren't sure what steps to take. They can also work with students and academics, setting study goals and creating action plans, much like those who work with professionals do for their careers.
They can also help with health and fitness. Though they aren't specifically nutritionists or sports coaches, they can work with clients to form healthy habits such as a regular gym routine, a better diet, and completing the steps they need to take to lead a healthier life.
A life coach can also help you with motivation and morale. Though they aren't a replacement for mental health professionals or therapists in certain situations, there are some areas where they could help you to stay motivated against setbacks or as you attempt to achieve your goals.
The Different Areas of Life Coaching
Life coaching is quite a broad profession, so most coaches work in a specific area with their clients.
These professionals are all life coaches, but their specialisation allows them to better help their clients.
There is some overlap between sports coaching and life coaching in health and fitness, primarily if a life coach specialises in health, fitness, nutrition, or exercise. A life coach may complete the same or similar qualifications as a personal trainer or fitness coach.
Life coaches who specialise in work and careers work with clients to help them make decisions about their working lives, identify skills they need to develop to get ahead and create action plans to achieve their professional goals.
They can also work with students and academics, setting study goals and creating action plans, much like those who work with professionals do for their careers.
The Skills Life Coaches Need
While life coaches help others achieve their goals by developing skills and strategies, a life coach should also have the right skills and qualities.
Here are the essential skills and qualities that every life coach should have.
Communication
Life coaches need to be excellent communicators. The role will involve both a lot of listening and a lot of speaking.
You need to listen to your clients' needs, concerns, goals, and ambitions, even if they need to be clearer and more certain about them.
Similarly, you need to communicate effectively with them, just as a teacher or coach has to communicate effectively with their students or athletes.
Fortunately, communication skills can be developed and learned, so even if you don't feel that you have them, many life coaching courses will cover them.
Ethics
Life coaches need to carefully consider the ethics of everything they do. They must be consummate professionals, respect their clients' privacy, and always consider the ethical implications of any advice they offer.
They must also ensure they stay within their remit and profession. Sometimes, the need to help and offer support to clients might encourage life coaches to step beyond the limits of their profession. Still, they must remember that other professionals can help their clients.
Life coaches must remember that they are not doctors, mental health professionals, business or financial consultants, or lawyers, and all these areas should be left to other professionals.
Inspiration
Life coaches are not just guides but also sources of inspiration. Their clients should feel empowered and capable of achieving their goals, knowing their life coach is there to support them.
This doesn't mean that life coaches should promise solutions to everything; it means that when clients work with them, they feel confident that the techniques and approaches they've decided to use are the best choice.
Motivation
One key area where life coaches help their clients is motivating them. Throughout their time with their clients, they should encourage them to work towards the agreed-upon goals and also help them remain motivated when there are setbacks.
Organisation
Many people look to life coaches to help them organise certain aspects of their lives to achieve their professional or personal goals.
A life coach can only do this if they're organised, especially when working with several clients.
Similarly, an unorganised life coach won't inspire confidence in their clients.
This will also help you outside of sessions with life coaching resources and preparing sessions.
Positivity
A life coach's positivity is a powerful tool. Clients need a coach who is not defeatist but positive and realistic. This positivity is contagious and can help instil a positive mindset in clients.
A good life coach will remain positive in challenging circumstances without being utterly oblivious to the realities of any situation.
This positivity is contagious, and it's easier to instil a positive mindset in clients if you can exhibit one yourself.
Responsibility
Life coaches help their clients make decisions and positive improvements in their lives without doing everything for them.
That said, life coaches still need to take responsibility for their services and listen to their clients if they have any concerns.
Qualifications for Life Coaches
Life coaching doesn't require any specific type of degree or credential, though there are several that exist.
There are two main reasons to look for a life coaching degree:
- to learn the necessary skills to become a life coach
- to legitimise your life coaching
If neither of these reasons applies to you, you don't need to do any life coaching credentials.
Suppose you have the necessary skills and understanding to become a life coach, and your service speaks for itself. In that case, you can start advertising your life coaching and working directly with customers.
However, if you struggle to find or keep life coaching clients, then it's worthwhile looking into some reputable training.
For example, the International Coach Federation (ICF) offers life coaching courses and diplomas, various coaching courses from the Irish Lifecoach Institute (ILI), and diplomas in subjects like Coaching and Coaching Psychology.
Each of these life coaching qualifications has pros and cons, so it's worthwhile doing your research, determining which skills they teach, and determining which is most appropriate for the niche of life coaching you'll want to work in.
Finding Clients as a Life Coach
Life coaches tend to work as freelancers and directly with their clients. This means that they need to source clients and retain them to run a successful life coaching business.
While we can't talk for every life coach, there are a few things that many life coaches should be doing. For one, having an online presence is essential as this is where most people find information, including information on potential life coaches.
Setting up social media accounts and a website for your life coaching business is worthwhile. These can help you attract customers and give them a way to get in touch.
Your socials and website should include information on the kind of life coaching service you offer, how much you charge, your availability, etc.
It's also worthwhile including recommendations from former and current clients, as this will help convince potential clients of the value of your service.
Life Coaching on the Superprof Website
Another way to do the above is by creating a profile for your life coaching services on the Superprof website.
This will allow you to showcase the service you offer, how much you charge, and list glowing reviews from your other customers.
There's no cost for the service as Superprof is a subscription service that the students pay for. There are options you can pay for to boost your profile's visibility. Still, the main costs are by the students and clients, which helps to maintain a higher quality of serious potential customers.
Offering potential clients the first session free is a great way to convince them of the value of your service. With Superprof, you can provide face-to-face and online private life coaching!
Start finding your life coaching clients on the Superprof website today!
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