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With so many people needing a little personal help, the need for people to become life coaches has never been more profound.
People want to improve their lives for ages, especially with the increased pressure and stress of modern lives, which becomes much more inevitable. It is not easy to achieve a work-life balance. As a result of which they turn to a life coach to find out solutions to their problems. However, there should be people who want to become life coaches; thus, they can help those in need.
But at this point, the biggest question is, does anyone can become a life coach or what is a life coach, and how can you become one. There are numerous life coaching niches in which area you want to tap. All these are very important questions to ask before choosing it as a profession.
What is a Life Coach?
Are you thinking about the fact you want to become a life coach? Then it is very important to understand the concept of a life coach. A life coach is someone that can help others to become the best versions of themselves. They can help their clients to excel in both their personal and professional life and empower them.
Unlike people, life coaching is not only about giving advice, but also involves building relationships and supporting clients. Therefore, they can make positive changes in people’s lives so that they can reach their full potential. Remember that life coaching is not about fixing clients’ problems; instead, it revolves around helping clients manage their own problems.
Never confuse counseling with life coaching, as both have different core values. Counseling deals with healing deep emotional healing and focuses on past events that contribute to the current problem. On the other hand, life coaching focuses on the future and deals with areas like self-improvement and personal growth.
Also, read this Article on Why to Get Life Coach Certified
What Does a Life Coach Do?
A life coach has a very sensitive and heart-centered job as it involves empowering others to fulfill their life purpose. Moreover, he can also help others to create a life of their dreams, whether they have big dreams or impossible ones. Once a person decides to live his life with a purpose, they can make a huge difference in the world. A coach can have a chance to participate in generating positive results.
The main responsibilities of a life coach are:
- Talk and learn about the situation of its client.
- They had to discuss their beliefs, values, and morals.
- They can also help their clients to have suitable goals to bring a positive change.
- Moreover, they can also break down the goals of their clients into small steps to make them achievable.
- Give ideas and ways to overcome setbacks and barriers.
- Also, support others so that they can stay motivated and committed.
- Help others to feel fulfilled and authentically happy.
- Understand the Invisible Laws of Success to achieve your goals.
Remember, a coach is not a psychologist or a therapist. However, both professions help others but have a big difference in their core values. As a life coach, your goal is to find hidden potential, creativity, and inner power in your clients. They had to tap the profound wisdom in their clients; therefore, they are unable to know. So, they can turn their minds into powerful magnets that can attract others.
How to Become a Life Coach
Unlike the general belief that life coaching requires stellar listening skills and compassion; however, in reality, it is more of a business decision. Anyone who decided to become a life coach should follow these steps to make sure they have legitimate services and business.
Find Your Niche:
The most important step in becoming a life coach is to find out your area of interest. It would be easy to excel in the field when you find what appeals to you and help you to build a reputation. The general areas of interest are the personal, professional, or romantic lives of people. Besides, there are also other niches like nutrition, holistic life, spirituality, etc.
However, keep in mind that no matter which niche you choose, it can always overlap with other niches. For example, you cannot talk about someone’s career without touching on their life. It is obvious that you can choose your specialty depending on your background and comfort level.
Get a Life Coach Certification:
Once you have decided which niche you want to explore, the next step is to get a life coach certification. Although it is not necessary to get a certification, it can still increase your credibility. According to ICF, almost 89 percent of coach practitioners received training from accredited or approved professional coaching organizations.
You don’t have to launch your business while trying to become a certified life coach. Getting a certification means you have the edge over your competition. However, it doesn’t mean all successful life coaches are certified.
You can either become a life coach and get a certificate by enrolling in a certification course via word of mouth, or Google, and get trained through in-person or online training. However, make sure that the course you are enrolled in is a complete program. Many certification schools do not offer continuation training, business training, and ongoing education programs.
Austerity Health Academy is one of the few that certify you to become a life coach as well as start, operate, and expand a life coaching business as well. During certification, you will learn skills such as active listening and creating a trusting environment for your clients. Moreover, they will also teach you about ethical aspects you must follow during practice. To get a certificate, you have to complete the training as well as a specific number of practice hours.
How to Set Up Your Life Coaching Business:
A life coach is not only an advisor to other’s personal or professional life, but instead, he is also an owner of a small business. Therefore, there are certain things you should pay attention to be successful in the industry. Pay special attention to:
Register Business:
First of all, decide on your business type like a sole proprietorship, LLC, or corporation. In case you want to be a sole proprietor, then you should officially register your business with the state. A-State business secretary search can help you to find resources.
Figure Out the Startup Cost:
It is important to plan your startup cost before starting your business. Add all costs from getting a life coaching certificate to renting a space for a business space. Don’t forget to add the insurance expense to the cost. However, the good thing is you don’t always need a high cost to start a life coaching business. You can also opt for an option to have an all-digital business.
Have a Marketing Plan:
Due to fierce competition these days, have a solid marketing plan before stepping your foot in the industry to attract attention. Right at the start of your business, have a comprehensive marketing plan. Remember, a squeamish person about self-promotion is not right to be a life coach. The best type of promotion comes from word of mouth. Give free offers or discounted sessions to the people in your network. A happy customer will spread positive remarks about you and give testimonials on your website.
Besides, there are also other effective marketing strategies like participating in conferences or hosting webinars. Moreover, they also have a presence on social sites like Facebook, and LinkedIn pages, or have blogs and business websites.
Have Your Digital Footprint:
No matter whether you have an all-digital or physical presence these days having a digital media presence is a must. It can greatly help you to attract clients. The things you will need for a digital presence include a computer and a domain name. Record videos; take your photos to conduct sessions. Blend a little bit of creativity and infuse it into your website to make your content look more attractive. You can play with various fonts, colors, and styles to have an appealing presence. If you have no idea how to do that, you can take help from the literature.
Decide Your Methodology with Clients:
Taking certification is not enough. It would help if you also learned about your working approach with your client. Therefore, decide on which services you will offer. You can offer different packages, areas of focus, and levels of services to your clients. Like many life coaches, talk to their clients free at first to let them find out whether they are looking for a coach or a counselor. Usually, life coaches offer different sessions like 30-minute, 50-minute, or 90-minute sessions. To help your clients, you need to have a clear goal.
Price Your Services:
This is the one obvious question no matter which business you will enter, you will always wonder about how much you will make. No wonder it is not easy to figure out the value of helping others. However, in the end, it’s all about business, and thus, you must put the price of your services.
But the answer to the question as to how much you should charge depends on your working approach and how you deal with clients. You can either charge an hourly rate or per day rate. Besides, it would be best if you also considered things like a one-time session or an ongoing relationship. You can also take guidance on how much other life coaches charge.
Invest in Continuing Education:
Never think that once you have established your business, it’s all done. You need to learn more and more skills with time to keep yourself updated with new trends. Learn new practices and try to seek out skill-building opportunities to make sure you stay on the top of your industry. As a result of which you will continue to deliver the best services to your client. How much you need to learn new skills depends on your niche. But continue attending conferences, workshops, seminars, and retreats. Join the life coaching community to keep yourself updated about new opportunities.
You can also ask for help from other coaches regarding new skills. The ones with better coaching skills and services will need more coaching tools, and the better they are at helping their clients. Therefore, continue with your education and add it to your expense list.
How Much Does It Cost to Become a Life Coach?
We have already mentioned in the above section that it costs you to become a life coach. It will cost you in the form of getting the coaching certification or attending training session fees. Besides, there are also other things in your business in which you should invest. Apart from certification, if you join a professional network (included in the Austerity Health Academy program) like ICF, you will have to pay their monthly fee. Other costs you have to include are whether you will pay for a physical location or not or have a completely online operation.
Moreover, you will also need to for things like advertising, marketing, and other fees. Although there are various “free” marketing ideas, that cost you time instead, you will also want to opt-in for smart paid advertisement. Including all the initial business costs is far less to start your own life coaching business than other types of personal businesses, but it can vary depending on your business plan.
Advantages of Becoming a Life Coach
Life coaching as a career has great chances to prosper and comes with huge benefits. And the good thing is that these benefits are limited to coaches and extend to your clients as well.
The Advantages of becoming a life coach are:
- As a life coach, you can help your clients by depicting to them how they can achieve their ideal life. As a result of which they can bring real results in their life and have lasting happiness.
- After you become a life coach, you can help others to remove problems, limitations, circumstances, and obstacles from their lives, which act as a hurdle in their path toward success.
- Your job as a life coach can help you earn a six-digit salary with a few hours of coaching. It won’t be easy to achieve the same figures with a nine-to-five job.
- Moreover, you can also have a free lifestyle according to your desires and not be bound by any rules. Therefore, you can have more time for your family, yourself, and your hobbies. Thus, making a big difference in the world.
- Through your training as a life coach, you will also be able to learn about the invisible Law of Success in your life. And can be able to accomplish any goal you set.
To simply state being a life coach, not only can you help others, but it can also empower you. Therefore, you can create a loving life fulfilling your purpose and earning a handsome amount. Therefore, get all the necessary skills and tools to help your clients have a better life and you.
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Best Life Coaching Courses and Certifications
The best life coaching courses and certifications offered by Austerity Health Academy:
- Life coaching certification
- Life coaching-business certification
- Empowerment life coach certification
There are numerous good institutes that offer life coaching certificates; so feel free to dive deep and make sure they offer you the training you need to become a life coach as well as run your life coaching business.
Is Coaching a Right Path for You?
While we are on the topic of how to become a life coach, it is important to learn whether you have an aptitude for being a coach or not. Coaching is a sacred calling. Therefore, to become a life coach first, you must be a person who is gifted to help others and has a dream to make others’ lives better. Passion is an important trait for a life coach because you must have a deep desire to help individuals achieve their dreams by supporting, motivating, and inspiring them.
Professional coaching is a win-win situation where coaches help others achieve their goals and have a purposeful, fulfilling, and lucrative profession. A life coach is nothing less than a light whose purpose is to help others in finding answers to their problems. You have to spark others’ courage to help them find their answers, especially those who have given up.
Ask these questions to yourself before you tried to be a life coach:
- In case you have the ability to create something new, what would you want to create?
- After becoming a coach, how would you spend your days?
- Do you have any idea about making this world a better place and how you can serve others?
Find answers to all of these questions and know where you stand. Moreover, these questions are not related to factors like time or money; therefore, don’t bother them while finding your answers. Learn the truth about yourself and what you love to do. Find out your doubts, fears, and insecurities, and then decide whether this is the right field for you or not.
Start Now
If you have a passion and empathy for people with a strong desire to help, you have the right stuff for becoming a life coach. Once you have decided to be a life coach, you can follow the steps mentioned above.
Just remember that just getting trained as a life coach is very much like being trained to work for someone else, and because most life coaches want the freedom that comes with owning their own business, be sure to get the training needed to successfully run your own life coaching business.