Although most people believe that being a life coach entails having an amazing amount of passion towards helping people and proper listening skills, this is more like a business decision. As soon as it becomes very glaring that this is your supposed discipline, make sure that the steps below are taken in order to ensure that your coaching practice becomes legitimate and successful.
Understanding What Life Coaching Entails
It is very important we understand what life coaching is all about before attempting to know how one can becoming successful in it.
Life coaches do provide support to others in order to ensure they grow and develop in some aspects of their lives. They help to create the perfect plans through which such developments will become a reality in the lives of such individuals. They are different from traditional therapists who analyze past events in the lives of people. They seem to focus on the future of people rather than their pasts. Being a life coach isn’t the same as a therapist, mentor or consultant.
Beyond all of these, it is an encompassing discipline. Sometimes certifications and accreditations are required. There are times it can imply a digital or in – person business. The bottom line is that provided there are people seeking help from you as a coach; know that you are already in the field of life coaching.
Finding Your Niche
Once you can discover your niche in the field of life coaching, you will be able to build a solid reputation within a very short period of time. Majority of life coaches have been known to concentrate on some aspects of people’s lives such as romantic, personal and professional lives. There are those that will narrow down their niches with a view to helping people improve in terms of health, nutrition, exercise and even checking their spiritual lives.
It doesn’t really matter your major area of focus as a life coach because you will be addressing two or more aspects of these areas. For example, there are lots of programs offering 3 distinctive service lines such as personal stories, specific projects, or careers. However, there are those who argue that some overlaps exist.
As soon as you’ve been able to identify your specialty which can be whatever you feel very comfortable discussing with people, such is when you will have a good chance of marketing yourself as an expert in the field of life coaching.
Getting Trained as well as Certified
From a technical point of view, you don’t need to be trained formerly before becoming a life coach. It isn’t the same as being a medical doctor or psychologist where you are required by law to go through some series of intense trainings. However, according to ICF study, over 85% of professional life coaches are either registered under a coaching organization or accredited.
Although being certified is not compulsory, it can help you go a very long way in this field. There are ethical guidelines regulating the activities of every life coach. You understand that training is a continuous process.
This doesn’t mean that every successful life coach is accredited though. There are lots of them out there who don’t have any certification yet make serious money on a monthly basis. It is all about the skills you’ve got and how you can deliver whenever called upon.
