Life Coaching is not the same as counselling, mentoring or similar helping roles. At its core, Life Coaching aims to get the client come up with their own goals and together plan a way to reach those goals. These goals can be personal, they can be about relationships, then can even be professional goals.

 

Talk

Firstly, a Life Coach will start a conversation with their client. It's through this that the Life Coach can help the client start to unravel what it is they want from their life, why they're being held back, concerns they may have, struggle areas and so on. A Life Coach can start getting an idea of what their client's needs are from conversation. Conversations can happen face to face, on the phone, via skype or other online platform.

 

Set Goals

 

Once a client and Life Coach have had the chance to talk, a Life Coach helps the client set goals. These will be personal goals that the client really wants to fulfil, not expectations that a client might be holding from parents or spouse, but their own personal goals and aims.

 

Make Plans to Achieve those Goals

Now that reachable goals have been set, the Life Coach helps the client create an action plan of how they will achieve those goals. Does the client want to stop smoking or improve their work output? A Life Coach comes armed with ways to help those things come to pass.

 

Overcome obstacles

 

To every goal we want to achieve, there will be a myriad number of reasons why we don't achieve them. A Life Coach comes along-side a client and helps overcome these obstacles. Maybe it's time management for someone who wants to improve a hobby they love. Set backs are also something a Life Coach helps a client overcome.

 

Provide motivation

Once a client is on their journey to realise their goals, a Life Coach will provide motivation and accountability to the client to keep them on track to achieving their dreams.

 

If you've always been great at listening to your friends, to your colleagues or even random strangers on the bus, perhaps consider a career as a Life Coach.

 

So, how to start up as a life coach? While no qualifications are required to start up in the industry, clients tend to prefer Life Coaches with some qualifications or at least membership to organisations such as the Association for Coaching or the European Mentoring and Coaching Council. Having some understanding of counselling, or how Life Coaching works is also beneficial.

 

Check out our course on Life Coaching if this is something that interests you!