Do you want to become a life coach? It's an exciting and rewarding career, but it's important to understand what it takes to become a successful life coach. There is no specific title or certification needed for life coaching, although getting certified as a life coach is a good start. Life coaches come to the profession with many different types of education, from social work and teaching to consulting. Technically, you don't need to get a life coach certification to work as a life coach.
Becoming a life coach is not like becoming a psychologist or doctor, which by law requires years of intense training before you can practice. However, according to the ICF study, 89% of practicing coaches receive training accredited or approved by a professional training organization. You don't need to be certified to work as a life coach. Anyone can call themselves a life coach.
As long as they don't intend to treat mental health conditions, they are free to train without a license or supervision. However, this also depends on who you want to work for and how competitive you expect to be. Life coaching is an unregulated industry. You don't need any qualifications to work with paid clients. But having the right skills and abilities can make you more successful in the field.
In fact, essentially anyone who wants to be a life coach can become one, regardless of age or educational background. There are a wealth of training programs and courses that can help you become a trained life coach. Becoming a great life coach requires personal qualities and extensive training, supervision and experience. A life coach must develop plans based on each client's strengths, weaknesses, abilities, limitations and values. When evaluating how to become a life coach, make sure the course is accredited by an association such as the International Coach Federation (ICF), which sets industry standards for ethical training. If you want to obtain certification in a specific aspect of life coaching, such as wellness, career, spirituality or relationships, direct your search to a specialized program. Even if you have the gift of working with people, you should be aware of the specific skill set that defines life coaching.
Becoming a certified life coach can be an intensive process and you may need to complete a certain number of training hours before you can earn your certification. But of course it's up to you to decide if you have the skills and abilities to work as a life coach without the right training and certification. Among the various psychology careers, life coaching gives you perhaps the most variety and flexibility in the people you work with and the problems you help solve. Learning how to become a life coach places you on the path to a rewarding career of helping people become their best selves and achieve more than they thought possible. Now, you can treat every life coaching client as the most important, whether you're 10 or 100. Feel free to receive training, read books on life coaching, and work with your own coach on how to structure those sessions.
