How to Become a Life Coach

If your friends often turn to you for advice and support in times of need then you might well have the qualities needed to become a life coach. Life coaches support individuals in both their personal and professional lives, helping them to set goals and then achieve them. As a life coach, you will help individuals to reach their full potential, and your role will be an incredibly satisfying one as you will see the impact that your actions have on the lives of others.

From finding life coach jobs to how much an average life coach salary is, here’s everything you need to know about how to become a life coach:

What is a Life Coach

Life coaching is a relatively new profession, but it is one that is growing quickly: there are now over 53,000 life coaches around the world. Unlike similar roles, such as becoming a counsellor, life coaching is not regulated in the UK. This means that anyone can work as a life coach if they feel they have the necessary skills and qualities, making this a great role if you want to help others and have transferable skills, but don’t necessarily have advanced qualifications.

A life coach will work with their clients to help them to understand what their future goals are, identify any obstacles or blocks that are preventing them from achieving these goals, and set targets and strategies for ultimately achieving their goals. A life coach can help individuals with both their personal and professional lives and can work with their clients over a short period of time or on a long-term basis.
The goal of a life coach is to help their clients achieve happiness and fulfilment. So, this is a great role if you thrive in situations where you are helping others and if you feel you have the skills needed to help individuals from all different backgrounds to move forward and live the lifestyle that is best suited to them.

As a life coach, your working environment will vary depending on the needs and preferences of both your own business and your client needs. Some life coaches work from their own home or business premises, whilst others prefer to work within their client’s environment. It is also possible to work remotely, communicating with clients exclusively via phone and email. Similarly, you will be able to set your own business hours, although as you are working with people who have their own working schedules, you can expect to work some evening and weekend hours.

Personal Qualities of a Life Coach

In order to achieve career success as a life coach, you will need to possess the following personal qualities:

• A great listener and able to be non-judgemental when listening to the problems or lifestyle choices of others
• An outgoing personality, you must enjoy working with other people and in a customer-facing role
• Enjoy self-evaluation, and feel confident in evaluating others in a non-judgemental way
• The ability to interact with people from all walks of life and treat everyone with the same levels of respect and understanding
• Patience and the ability to remain calm in stressful situations. The ability to keep your cool and think on your feet
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills to enable you to interact and communicate with your clients, as well as to provide full written confirmation of your coaching advice and support
• The ability to maintain your customer’s confidentiality and be discreet about their specific and unique needs
• Able to offer advice and help people explore their issues independently without telling them what to do. Able to guide others and encourage them to use their own initiative
• Finally, you must be computer literate and be able to use the main software packages with ease and competence
• As you are working in a public-facing role, you may need to pass enhanced background checks to make your clients feel comfortable and at ease around you

What a Life Coach Does

As a life coach, you will work collaboratively with your clients to help them take control of their lives. You will provide motivational services and use your own skills that will give your clients an advantage in both their private and professional lives. The success of your role as a life coach will be judged by not only how your clients feel but also what they achieve: you may well see that your clients successfully gain promotions, new personal relationships, even a healthier work-life balance. The sense of professional pride that you feel in the achievements of others is what will set you apart as a good life coach.

The role of a life coach will vary every day, depending on the clients that you are working with, but you can expect to undertake some of the following actions as part of your daily work life:

• Meeting clients to ascertain what support they need from you, and to discuss their specific problems and challenges
• Getting to know your clients better and building a picture of their personal and professional situation, values, beliefs and wider attitudes
• Work with clients either by meeting them face-to-face, on the telephone, or corresponding with your clients via email
• Work with your clients individually or, when appropriate, in small group settings
• Motivate your clients, giving them confidence when they need it and helping them build the toolbox they need to overcome setbacks and work towards reaching their goals
• Actively listen to your clients and then use unique questioning techniques (both verbal and in the form of questionnaires) to help your clients to identify the areas where they need to develop further. You can then work together to develop these skills
• Hold back from telling your clients what to do or giving them solutions: instead work to give them the tools they need to provide their own solutions
• Set suitable and attainable goals for your clients, so that both you and they have a focused and measurable target for their coaching sessions
• Meet with your clients regularly so that they remain motivated and committed to achieving the goals that you have set out as part of your coaching sessions
• Focus on your own continued professional development (CPD) ensuring that your coaching skills remain up to date and you are in the best position to provide high-level support to your clients
• Many life coaches work on a self-employed basis. If you are self-employed then your role will also involve promoting your business, advertising your services and meeting with potential new clients. You will also be responsible for your own business admin, such as keeping robust records and organising your own accounting and other financial accounts

How Much Does a Life Coach Earn?

One of the most frequently asked questions about life coaching careers involves the life coach salary: how much does a life coach earn? This is an incredibly variable figure because life coaches in the UK set both their own hourly rate and their own working hours. You can expect to earn between £60 to £120 per hour for the hours that you spend with your clients, but it’s important to remember that when you are self-employed, any hours that you spend completing administrative tasks, business promotion, or writing reports after your client’s sessions are not chargeable hours and therefore you will not be paid for this time.

The more experience that you have, the more you will be able to charge per hour and the greater your salary aspirations will be. You will also earn more the more clients you have, and the greater number of client-facing hours you work each week.

According to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS)  the average UK salary comes in at £585 per week (this would give an annual salary of £30,420 per year) but anecdotal evidence suggests that the average life coach will have greater earning potential than this average figure. The most sought-after life coaches in the UK can earn up to £120,000 per year.

Qualifications Needed for a Life Coach

There are no formal qualifications required to become a life coach, and you can establish your own business without legally being obliged to have any certification or be part of a professional body. However, because it is such a competitive industry, potential clients are more likely to work with life coaches that have an industry-specific qualification and a proven track record in counselling or psychology-based training or careers.

Because it is such a new industry, particularly in the UK, there are very few recognised life coaching courses available, but there are a wide range of counselling and psychology courses that would boost your CV and your website considerably. Some great examples of these include:

TQUK Level 2 Certificate in Counselling Skills
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Level 3 Certificate
Psychology Diploma Level 3 Course

You may also wish to secure a degree in a relevant subject and, if you wish to offer formal counselling services as part of your coaching offering then you should also consider studying for a postgraduate award in either counselling or coaching.

If you would like to work as part of an established coaching business and learn from a more advanced mentor rather than setting up your own business, at least initially, then you could also secure a coaching professional higher apprenticeship. The benefits of this are that you would earn whilst you learn and that you would work within an established organisation, taking advice from more experienced industry experts, and developing your own skills of coaching individuals and teams to improve their work performance. An apprenticeship of this kind will typically take 14 months to complete and will comprise a mix of learning in the workplace and off-the-job study. By the end of your apprenticeship, you will be left with a recognised coaching qualification. In order to secure an advanced apprenticeship of this kind, you will need to have 4 or 5 GCSEs at grades 9 to 4 (A* to C) and A levels, or equivalent.

On the Job Training

Because you don’t need any formal qualifications to secure a career as a life coach, on the job training is a great way to hone your skills. The more hours of experience interacting with real clients that you have, the better your life coaching skills will be, and many certification models for life coaching will require you to secure as many as 300 coaching hours in order to complete the course.

Online on the job training is a popular choice for many life coaches. The benefit of choosing an online learning course is that you can study anywhere, anytime, and anyhow.  This puts you in charge of your study and means that you’re more likely to study for additional, transferable skills that could enhance your own career (whilst using your life coaching skills to help others enhance theirs!)

Professional Bodies

Joining a professional body aimed specifically at life coaches is a great way to grow your client base and reassure your clients that you are dedicated to your role and that you have the skills you need to help them achieve their goals. There are several different options available to you:

• The Association for Professional Executive Coaching and Supervision (APECS) is the professional body for executive coaching and for the supervision of executive coaches. To become a member of this body you must be approved by the association, and will need a substantial amount of training and experience in the sector
• The UK International Coach Federation (ICF) is the professional association for personal and business coaches in the UK, although the organisation itself operates world-wide. There are different levels of accreditation you can achieve with this body depending on your level of qualifications, and this is a great place to start your career as many individuals looking for a personal life coach will use their database as a starting point for their search
• Finally, the European Mentoring and Coaching Council is a great option if you wish to have a transferrable membership that will enable you to travel around Europe offering your coaching services. There are a number of different membership categories including Associate Member, Master Member and Professional Member. As a non-profit organisation, this is a highly respected organisation dedicated to best practice across the life coaching sector