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Back in the 1980s, when a man named Thomas Leonard made life coaching known to people, the response he got from people was not convincing. Instead, it was scepticism, because people didn’t know what does a life coach do.
But as time went by, everyone realised what they do and their importance, and after a decade or so, life coaching grew heavily in popularity. Everyone started noticing the impact it was having on people’s lives. The most popular coaching was on life, relationships, careers, health, finances, and the overall well-being of a person.
So it is safe to say that life coaching has changed so much since then. There are dozens and dozens of life coaching areas, and the number of people hiring a life coach these days has tripled.
This number will increase more rapidly. It is growing as we speak. This has led to many people noticing and taking life coaching as their career. After all, it is a business that is booming and isn’t at all close to falling anytime soon.
So what exactly is life coaching? What does a life coach do, and how should one become a life coach? Yes, we will answer all these questions. Let’s start with who is called a life coach.
Table of Contents
Who Is A Life Coach?
A life coach is a fine mix of a friend and an adviser to put it in the shortest way possible. Someone who is professionally trained to help you reach your full potential to ensure you reach your goals.
They can improve your career, relationships, and also your day-to-day life, basically by making you a better version of yourself.
They help people with both personal and professional lives. Both people with a specific goal and people who maybe haven’t come up with a plan or are unsure which one to pursue among the available options will benefit from a life coach.
A life coach identifies the barrier or the thing that is holding them back from reaching their destination for the ones with a goal. After that, comes up with strategies and techniques to overcome each barrier.
And the ones not sure with which goal to reach and which path to take, a life coach finds out the unique skills they possess and figure out the potential goals he\she can pursue.
All in all, they will use all your strength, provide the support, encouragement and the motivation you need to achieve any change towards the right direction.
What Does A Life Coach Do?
A life coach encourages, motivates, and guides the path towards reaching success, whether professional or personal. They do that by finding out and analysing your current situation– the obstacles, barriers, problems, and behaviours stopping you from reaching your desired goals.
They also help you with the transitional period of your life. In the transitional period, you will need someone to guide, support, and motivate you the right way. This is exactly what a life coach will do.
The cherry on the cake is that you will be successful without a doubt because life coaches change lives and take them in a positive direction.
Furthermore, a person can get a fresh perspective, a new eye giving them a clear vision of their problems and obstacles. So it makes the task of finding solutions more accessible.
There are more positive outcomes one can achieve. Such as:
- More creativity
- Better work and life balance
- Get rid of stress, fear, and anxieties
- Better communication and interpersonal skills
- Better relationships and bonding with friends and families
- More financially stable
Differences Between A Life Coach & A Therapist
Even after knowing what does a life coach do, there are a lot of people who assume a life coach and a therapist do the same thing. This confusion is not surprising because if you look at them from a very far away, their jobs look similar.
But if you look closely and start breaking down everything they do, that is when you realise just how different they are. So let’s begin with therapy.
Therapy
Therapy is usually a long-term process, and a qualified healthcare professional is the one who is in charge. Problems on relationships, behaviours, emotions, and beliefs are solved, and the solutions are given from a healthcare perspective.
The focus is given more on the past experiences and the past traumas to learn about the client’s behaviours and what caused the problems and the scenario. Also, to provide the support to recover from past experiences and past traumas.
Easily put, they look for the “Why” by examining a client’s subconscious and unconscious mind and find the solutions to change that.
Lastly, they help through anxiety, depression, anger, motivation, and other emotions like grief after losing a loved one and broken relationships, basically healing and treating mental health conditions.
Life Coaching
Life coaching can be both a long-term and a short-term process. So it depends on the result the person has planned to achieve. Plus, there is specific life coaching in a particular field, so the effectiveness is higher.
A life coach can’t treat mental health conditions, as this is not their expertise. The process involves identifying the problems, obstacles, and behaviours. Then, work on them to reach or find the goals.
The focus is given more on the present rather than emphasizing the past. Like, how to change the current condition, improve the present flaws, and all. The steps that need to be taken are calculated with the success and goals they have achieved compared to the desired success and goals they want to achieve.
A life coach acts as a support to make a change and make yourself a better version of yourself by improving interpersonal skills, making sure you have a balance between your work and personal life.
To finish it off, they also work on making an individual financially independent, maybe by helping them create a business plan or grow a business bigger or any other jobs.
Salary Of A Life Coach
As mentioned above, the number of clients reaching a life coach increases with each passing day. The list of clients starts from ordinary people down to the most successful people out there. That is why many people are considering jobs in this field. I mean, it is not rocket science after you know what does a life coach do.
So this begs the question, how much does a life coach earn? The answer depends on the experience, the level of expertise, and the city they work in. According to Payscale:
- A beginner level Life coach earns about £21 per hour
- An average Level Life coach earns about £45 per hour
- An Experiences Life coach will charge £97 per hour
Once all these add up, you can earn from £24,000 to £156,000 annually. However, the numbers can rise from £180 to £200 for a 90-minute session if you have 10+years of experience.
For many life coaches, life coaching is a side gig that they do, especially on the weekends. Of course, this means you can do part-time too, but there are chances you can get a full-time contract with your company in which you will be paid a more reasonable amount.
You can also do full-time self-employed, but that usually takes time as you need years of experience to earn higher. However, if you can manage big clients, it is possible to make it full-time as you will not need to depend on other jobs to cover up your expenses.
Few tips from us would be not to work too many hours, instead work the standard number of hours. And move away from hourly rates and try creating packages, as this will help you earn more.
Life Coach Career Scope
The first step to becoming a life coach is figuring out the niche you will work at. Speaking of niches, there are so many options one can choose from. Here are the top 20 niches:
- Mental health coaching
- Health & Wellness coaching
- Personal development coaching
- Life skills coaching
- Mindset & Accountability coaching
- Financial coaching
- Family life coaching
- Recovery coaching
- Transitional coaching
- Addiction & Sobriety coaching
- Business coaching
- Small business coaching
- Executive coaching
- Leadership coaching
- Career coaching
- Dating & Relationship coaching
- Diet & Fitness coaching
- Divorce coaching
- Spiritual coaching
- Sports coaching
Now it is time to know about the qualities a life coach should possess. These qualities make them stand out in the industry. We will also mention a few tricks that you can keep up your sleeves.
Qualities Of A Life Coach
The first step to becoming a life coach is figuring out the niche you will work at. Speaking of niches, there are so many options one can choose from. Here are the top 20 niches:
Effective Communication
The communication that will occur in a session between a life coach and the client has to be effective because based on that, the obstacles, behaviours, and other problems can be known. Moreover, it will help the life coach make a plan or know what steps are needed to be taken.
Listening Skills
Don’t you think that 70% of life coaching is all about listening? Once you listen, you can only have effective communication with your client and address their problems. The more you listen to them, the more comfortable they will get with you.
Having Positive Attitude
Your positive attitude is what is going to help people open up to you and discuss everything freely. They will also be in a positive mood to discuss their lives and believe and trust you more.
Have Curiosity
You have to be very curious about your client’s life. Only in that way will you be able to ask the tiniest bit of questions and find the most out of their lives. It’s simple, the more you will want to know, the more you will find.
Be Observant
There is a lot one can learn about a person by just observing a bit more. So do a bit more than just listen, like see how their facial expressions change with time with specific topics, how their gestures change, how their body language changes, and how their tone of voice changes.
Be Passionate
Like having curiosity, being passionate will also help you take out the slightest of details from your client. Additionally, being passionate will give you the desire to help people. It creates a special bond as well as makes it easier to find solutions to all the problems.
Be Honest
You should always tell what you hear and feel about the situation. However, there will be times when you have to tell them the harsh truth. As humans, it is normal to feel reluctant at times, but you have to be honest with yourself and with them because who knows, that harsh truth could eventually change their lives.
Be Trustworthy
Not all of us feel comfortable with people knowing about everything that is going with our lives. And some people don’t trust people very quickly. Either can be the case for your clients, so you have to have them feel secure and be in their circle of trust.
Can’t Impose Your Opinions
Another thing that many life coaches find challenging to do at the beginning is not giving their own opinions on how they would do things differently. Yes, it is not a bad thing, but you’ve got to place yourself in their shoes and know that not all of us do the same things to deal with something. Your opinion should be 100% professional.
Don’t Be Judgemental
If you are judgemental, then you will jump right to conclusions automatically without hearing your client. Plus, no one likes to be judged, and one of the main reasons people come to a life coach is to be heard without any judgements. Being judgemental will result in your client feeling reluctant and also not secure.
Tips And Tricks To Become A Life Coach
Here are Some Non-Verbal Communication Tricks:
- Maintain eye contact at all times
- Show positive attitude
- Proper posture
- Good gestures
- Positive body language
- Maintain silence but not awkward silence as it will creep out the client
- The facial expression should be such that it shows you are focused at all times
In addition, you will need to ask questions to make yourself clear and know more answers. When asking questions, ensure the following:
- Questions should be short & simple
- Avoid judgmental questions
- Questions can be open-minded
- Ask questions that are off the topic too
- Mix up the questions, so they don’t get frustrated or feel annoyed
- The tone should be similar to your client
Facts About Being A Life Coach
After knowing what does a life coach do, it may seem easy, but it isn’t. Some things are certain in this field, like you need to work hard to be successful, and you won’t get immediate results. You will need to put in the work to get to a higher level and earn higher. Things will be complicated, especially when you are starting.
The reason for this is that people don’t know you. Therefore, it is a no-brainer that you will need to invest a reasonable amount of time and effort to build your reputation, relations, and network among the communities, with agencies, employers, and potential clients.
As things are difficult initially, many life coaches take life coaching as a side gig and do similar jobs, like career consultancy and counselling. This helps as all these jobs are alike and give them that extra bit of experience which they can use to excel at life coaching.
Things You Need To Keep In Mind
There are certain investments you will need to make for your training and certificates. This may be a bit expensive. You will also need to accept that this job will eat up a lot of your time, especially in calls, sessions, and meetings, because this is also what does a life coach do.
Once you are working, you will need to switch off your personal life. However, you can’t let anything distract you from giving your 100% to your clients. This is quite difficult, but you have to be professional.
However, that doesn’t mean you have to push yourself very hard. On the contrary, taking things easy will help you keep a calm head, which will help you make the right decisions.
Another thing you need to keep in mind is that you can’t be too nice to your clients. Yes, they will have achievements, but you shouldn’t honour them too much.
Besides, treat life coaching like a passion and not business as this will make you more efficient and keep the business part in mind as you don’t want to get too close or too much involved with your clients. And you know what helps in life coaching, getting a coach to help you. You can’t deny that one can learn a lot from someone’s experience.
Conclusion
To become a life coach, there are so many things that you will need to know and learn apart from knowing what does a life coach do. You need to take classes and courses to know everything one needs to know to become a life coach. The certificates you get are like a collection of excellence.
That is why you will be happy to hear that our course on Life Coaching is a game-changer and has everything from head to toes. To top it off, we also provide a certificate at the end of the course. So as far as this goes, Janets is presenting you with everything you need. So Help Us Help You Help Other People!
