Before you start a life coaching business, there are six questions that you need to ask yourself.
According to a study by the International Coach Federation, there are over 53,000 coach practitioners globally and 17,000 in North America alone, proving that life coaching is a growing industry.
The problem with life coaching is that anyone can do it. However, not everybody should. If you don't know what you're doing, it can be extremely difficult to become successful.
Are you ready to learn what it will take to build a sustainable life coaching business?
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Are you wondering whether or not you should be a life coach?
I receive a lot of messages from people who ask me what it takes to become a successful life coach. If you feel called to devote your work to this career, amazing! A commitment to changing peoples' lives and making a difference in the world is a beautiful thing to aspire to.
The fact that you want to be a life coach tells me one very important thing about you… you are passionate about helping others. I commend you for that. The world needs more people like you.
Life coaches are people that sacrifice their time and energy so that someone else can create the results that they are after in life. As a coach myself and someone who has been coached, I can attest to the transformative benefits of life coaching. However, it's important that you are aware of what will be required of you before you start helping others.
Unfortunately, I see a lot of people fail or quit altogether because they didn't get real with themselves before they launch their life coaching business. They assume that because anyone can call themselves a life coach that building a coaching business should be easy.
This is far from true.
Whoever said, “Do what you love and the money will follow” didn't get far in the business world. Yes, passion is extremely important. However, you cannot grow a successful coaching business on passion alone. You will save yourself a lot of time, money, and energy if you actually take a step back and reflect upon whether or not starting a life coaching business is the right move for you.
The best way to find out is by asking yourself the following six questions.
1. Why Do You Want To Be A Life Coach?
No matter what you decide to pursue in life, you've always got to have a strong reason for doing so, otherwise known as your “why.” Why is being a life coach more important to you than anything else? If your only motivator is making money or boosting your ego, you won’t get far in this business.
It won't be enough to sustain you through the roller coaster ride of challenges that you will encounter in your life coaching business. Your “why” will become especially critical when you start selling your brand and creating content for your audience.
Before you even think about getting certified as a life coach, I encourage you to do some deep soul-searching, go inward and listen to what your intuition is telling you. In my experience, having a solid “why” is the one thing that keeps you motivated when everything else in your business feels overwhelming.
2. Do You Have Any Credentials?
Credentials are a key piece of your credibility as a coach. Let me ask you something. If you needed to see a doctor, would you have as much faith in someone that you just met who had no medical training, versus someone who had years of experience studying and learning about the human body? I'm guessing that you would choose the latter.
When it comes to helping someone change their life, you want to make sure that you take the time to study and analyze the psychology of the mind. I am a self-taught life coach. I don’t have any formal coaching education, per se. That being said, over the years I have gone through various training programs, in particular, Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP), that have helped take my life coaching business and my own life to the next level.
In the beginning stages of my life coaching journey, my intention was merely to share my knowledge with others, for free. Over time, people sought out my help. I showed people that change was possible, and I was able to get them real results.
My focus has always been on adding massive value to my audience.
I've done this through the creation of high-quality content, which has allowed me to become a thought leader in my industry. I've committed my life to personal growth and development and consider myself to be a student for life. My story is proof that you don't have to be legally certified to be a coach.
However, over the last few years, coaching has become such a massive industry. In order to stand out, you have to be deemed as credible, and credentials help with that. Most people want to be coached by someone that has the appropriate coaching training, especially when it comes to matters of health, relationships, and life in general.
The good news is that you can become certified in a very short period of time. There are many life coaching training programs out there for you to choose from. Make sure that you find one that has good reviews and that provide you with the International Coaching Federation (ICF) certification. If you go to the ICF website, you will see a list of schools that they accredit and that will give you the training that you need.
3. Are You Ready To Become An Entrepreneur?
Choosing to start a life coaching business means that you are choosing to become an entrepreneur. It means that you are ready to run your own business. Sit with that for a minute. Are you ready for the roller coaster ride of entrepreneurship?
Don't get me wrong… being an entrepreneur has a lot of perks, but success doesn't happen overnight. Being a life coach doesn't just involve helping people. It also means doing things like designing and managing a website, creating course content, dealing with customer complaints, and selling your products. The list goes on and on. On top of that, you will need to become super resourceful and learn a lot of new skills.
If the idea of running a business feels like hard work, that's because it is. A lot of people go into a business with unrealistic expectations, only to be shocked to find out what is involved. Don't waste your time. If you aren't in it for the long run, you may as well not get started.
4. Are You A Good Listener?
Do you ever find that, when you’re talking with someone, your mind is thinking about something else? Even worse, that you are planning what you are going to say next before the other person has even finished their sentence? In your role as a life coach, you cannot do this.
As Stephen Covey once said, “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”
Active listening is the most important coaching competency. I'm here to tell you that if you aren't a good listener, coaching is going to be a struggle for you. As a coach, it's your job to listen to your clients. Not only are you listening to the words that they are saying, but you are also listening for the emotions that they are trying to convey.
From my experience being a coach for the last ten years, it is my firm belief that one of the best gifts that you can give to someone is your full presence. Some people have never been fully seen or heard before. Everyone has a story to share.
As a coach, you want to summarize, clarify, and paraphrase the words that are being expressed to you. Don't forget to pay attention to the body language that your clients are mirroring back to you. From personal experience, I have witnessed deep insights and massive shifts occur as the result of a coach's skill in using active listening.
5. Have You Ever Been Coached Yourself?
If you want to motivate others to change their lives, you've got to focus on your own personal development journey first. Are you ready to acknowledge that you need a coach?
Every successful coach that I know has a coach whom they've worked with. These people didn't get to where they are today on their own. Early on in their coaching journey, they realized how much faster they could grow their business if they harnessed the support and accountability of a coach.
As former Google CEO Eric Schmidt says, “Everybody needs a coach… every famous athlete, every famous performer, has somebody who’s a coach… someone who can help them see themselves as others see them.”
I've hired hundreds of coaches over the last ten years of my life. I still work with one to this day.
I wouldn't have achieved the success that I have without their guidance and wisdom. If you want to be a successful coach, mentorship is very important. Research shows that 46% of start-up failures are due to incompetence.
A lot of life coaches resist getting a coach of their own. They think that they are capable of doing everything on their own. By not investing in themselves, they allow their egos to get in the way. Their inability to grow and develop ends up becoming a massive roadblock to their success.
When you run a business, your mind is taken in a million different directions. We all have blind spots. Coaches are skilled at identifying what these are so that you can overcome them and keep growing as an individual and a coach.
More importantly, learning from someone who has been where you want to go is extremely helpful when you are in the beginning stages of your business. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. Learn from others' mistakes. Doing so will accelerate your success.
6. Do You Have A Vision For Your Business?
If you don't have a vision statement for your life coaching business, you won't have a sense of direction. Being a life coach means that you have chosen a business that inspires, empowers, and helps people to actualize their true potential. If you don't have your own vision, how do you expect to teach others how to create their own?
Before you can determine what your vision is, you need to first have a clear understanding of what your values and beliefs are. Once you know what these are, you can then build your life coaching business around them. A vision is meant to move you towards your desired future. The clearer you are about your vision, the greater the impact that you will have in the world.
Ask yourself why your business exists in the first place. If you don't know the answer to this, it will be extremely difficult to communicate this to your clients. People can smell inauthenticity, so be mindful if you are not operating in alignment with your true self.
If you are stuck on what your vision for your business is, I suggest that you create a vision board. Include text, images, or pictures that reflect what is important to you. What you put your attention towards, you tend to experience more of. When you reflect upon your vision board, activate your senses and focus on how this ideal future makes you feel.
Are you ready to build a successful life coaching business?
For many people, these questions will be a wake-up call, and that's great! If your answers to these questions weren't what you expected, don't get down on yourself. Growth isn't always comfortable. If it was, everyone would do it. Maybe you have some more inner work to do before you give you start giving advice to others, and that is OK.
In the words of Indira Gandhi, “The power to question is the basis of all human progress.” Always be open to learning new things about yourself and the world. The purpose of knowledge is to inform and educate you so that you can become more and share that wisdom with others.
Life coaching is some of the most rewarding and fulfilling work that I've ever done. If coaching is right for you, you will know.
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