If you are a caring person who wishes to help people and you are a good listener, then becoming a life coach could be a career change for you. Life coaching and helping others can be immensely rewarding and fulfilling, whether it is helping others directly, as a team or even through sports.
The life coaching industry is starting to take off, with more and more people becoming coaches. Life coaching can be a very rewarding occupation, which is interesting, flexible, can be well paid and offers the freedom to work from home. The demand for life coaches is huge and growing and now is as good a time as ever to become a life coach. A life coach helps a client to reach their full potential, and there are different elements to being a life coach which you can specialize in. Being a coach you would be expected to help your client with their motivation, self-esteem, relationships, career management, time management and leadership. Of course these are just a few areas a life coach would be expected to cover, though there are many more.
How do you start? The obvious way is to find a course in your area, find out where and what courses your local learning centre has to offer. If they provide life coaching courses it’s likely they have contacts of other people or groups in your area who have an interest in life coaching, and if so it would be well worth joining up. If there are no courses look out for seminars. On courses and seminars look out for the way the coach presents themselves and interacts with the crowd, and imagine yourself doing the same. If you have the chance, speak to the life coach at the end of the seminar and ask how they become a coach, get as much advice as you can. Also don’t forget to network with the other attendees.
Look out for certification and try to become accredited once you have completed your courses. It is very important to get an accreditation as many clients and businesses insist on you having a qualification before they hire you.
The problem with life coaching courses is that they are not regulated or defined like other industries where there has been many years of growth. Life coaching is a young industry and as such, how do you know if a life coaching course is credible.
Here are a few tips.
Ask the course provider questions and make sure you ask for references to show they have a proven track record.
Compare what they have to offer to other life coaching courses you have found.
Check what accreditation they offer and check its validity with other certifications from other courses.
Check testimonials of the course from other participants, that is a good way to check if it’s right for you.
Don’t pay over the odds, don’t believe because the course charges double the price as the next course it will be twice as good, often the quality of the course is determined by the quality of the lecturer.
It’s not just individuals who need the services of a life coach, as many businesses use these skills to train their staff to become more positive and motivated in the work place, and there is a lot of money to be made providing your skills to companies.
Due to the explosion in this category there are now many life coaches out there plying their trade, and most of them are very willing to help you. Make contact and network with as many other coaches as you can. Search them out on Google, they nearly all have a webpage these days and even the most local life coaches to your area are easy to find.
Set yourself a target, and write it on paper, give that target a date and do everything you can to reach that date. Make a list of everything you need to do and then follow it.
Becoming a life coach is largely to do with being a good networker, being self-disciplined and motivated. You have to be interested in what motivates people, be able to motivate others and have the confidence to ask people the questions they need to ask themselves to move forward with their lives. The types of skills needed to be a life coach include being a good listener, being able to see problems and solutions clearly, being able to offer positive and realistic advice, and to be trustworthy. Life coaches need to be able to inspire their clients.
Finally many good life coaches have never attended a course and they use their natural ability, (which we all have), to put people at ease and help them through the next stage of their life.
Good luck.