The coronavirus pandemic has made so many things go online and the process of becoming a life coach has become relatively easier now than in the past. The industry of life coaching has seen tremendous growth in the year 2020.
A study suggests that there are over 14,000 life coaches in North America only and around 71,000 new coaches in 161 countries worldwide — a massive increase on the 53,300 that was in 2018.
I started life coaching in 2020 before this pandemic started. After a year, in December 2020, I did my certification from Coach.me, and have a coaching experience of over a thousand hours.
Before this, I had a 5-year career in the digital marketing domain. That means I have an ample amount of experience in setting up businesses and marketing them. Besides this, I had gained a couple of million views and thousands of followers on my writings.
We have seen a rise in new life coaches online during the pandemic.
If you are one of the new coaches, these are the seven areas you need to focus on in your first 3 months —
Author’s note: This is the exact framework I teach in my 8-week “Life Coaching 101” program.
Get some training
Life coaching is an unregulated field that means anyone can call themselves a life coach. You don’t need certifications to become a life coach.
The issue is a lot of life coaches don’t have any training. Even if their intention is good, they are not properly trained, which is why they don’t know the underlying basic principles of life coaching.
And so, I suggest you start your career as a life coach with proper training. You can go with a group experience, recorded course, or from a single coach, but the first thing you need to focus on is getting trained. It will help you with honing your life coaching skills.
“Practice is the hardest part of learning, and training is the essence of transformation.”
— Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are
Coach more people
Coaching courses can help you with the theory of becoming a life coach, but you can never truly be a good coach without actually coaching people. You see, how you are not a writer if you don’t write.
Coach people — get some practice clients, you can coach your colleagues, friends, or a family member with their permission.
You can help put them in certain areas of life in which they are struggling. Try to give them the single best advice that can affect their lives positively.
Coaching is a practical field. No matter how much theory you learn, you cannot be a great coach unless you coach someone.
Experience the power of coaching
Hire a life coach or business coach for yourself who can help you with your life decisions — get an experience of what life coaching means.
Because without getting experience yourself, how would you pitch to a client what life coaching is or how important it is.
When someone else coaches you, only then do you understand the true purpose of life coaching. Even if you are in group training, hire a personal one-on-one. Without understanding the benefits of life coaching by actually experiencing it, you cannot pass it on to your future clients.
Seek feedback on your coaching skills
As it is required in the first 3 to 6 months to have someone watch your coaching or give live feedback on your life coaching skills.
This doesn’t work if you’re attending a recorded course — you need someone live, an experienced coach, or a peer, who can guide you in the right direction and suggest how you could have taken the case.
As mentioned above, it could be feedback from a professional life coach who you have hired. He can attend your sessions or watch your recordings, and can offer you sincere feedback.
To me, feedback is very crucial for aspiring life coaches to sharpen their skills.
“Feedback turns good into better and better into best.”
― Frank Sonnenberg, Listen to Your Conscience: That’s Why You Have One
What about your own growth?
I love this concept from Ajit Nawalkha, co-founder of Evercoach, where he mentions –
“Your coaching business is equal parts of 3 elements, your coaching skills, your business skills, and you; your self-improvement”.
Your self-improvement is 33% of your business. And if you are not interested to change yourself or be a better person, how will you help someone else do that.
Invest in self-improvement, become self-aware, recognize your patterns, and see where you need to work more on yourself.
Take small steps to improve yourself as a person and as a life coach. Observe and eliminate bad habits and toxic patterns from your own life — only then you can help others.
Here is how Aldous Huxley, an English writer, and philosopher, mentions self-improvement –
“There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.”
Set up your business / Admin work
If you are a new life coach, you don’t need a team of 10 or 20 people. You can start by yourself only, but you would need some tools or scheduling software like Calendly to manage appointments and meetings.
It will help you schedule events, meetings, and appointments. With the help of Calendly links, you can send your availability to your clients that will save you precious time.
Furthermore, you need to consider the legal and financial aspects of your business. You will have to manage your taxes and contracts — how to sign up a client and have them signed a contract.
You need to figure out all these minor matters required for business.
For tools, here’s what you will need —
- Coaching sessions — Zoom, Google Meet, Skype
- Scheduling — Calendly
- Recordings — YouTube ( upload as unlisted/private video)
- Email Marketing — Mailchimp, Convertkit, Mailerlite
- Contract Sign — Eversign
- Others — Website, landing pages, etc
You can pick the free version of all these tools to get started.
Show up to marketing
Every coach needs to learn how to show up for marketing. Most life coaches struggle because they think they can only survive by being great life coaches and that they don’t need marketing.
Spoiler alert: It’s a business, and it requires marketing.
Like any other muscle, such as the biceps, triceps, or thighs, marketing is also a muscle. So, every day when you market yourself — when you show up with a video, text, or post and practice marketing, your marketing muscle will grow.
This will be the differentiating factor between you and all the other coaches.
Learn more about growing your marketing muscle here —
https://bettermarketing.pub/a-practical-guide-to-growing-your-marketing-muscle-112be7e51348
Takeaway
First of all, congratulations that you have decided on exploring to be a life coach. It is a great field, and we need more life coaches now more than ever.
In a nutshell, these are the 7 areas you need to focus on as a new life coach —
- Getting training — The first area you need to focus on is getting proper training and honing your life coaching skills.
- Coaching experience — You cannot be a life coach without actually coaching people; you can coach dummy or practice clients to get some hands-on life coaching experience.
- Being coached — To understand the benefits of life coaching, hire your own life coach and experience what life coaching means.
- Feedback on your coaching skills — Get an experienced life coach to give you live feedback on your coaching skills.
- Self-improvement — Invest in self-improvement and become a better person so that you can help your future clients do that.
- Business set up/ Admin work — Look into scheduling software or tools to manage your meetings and appointments. You also need to look after legal and financial, taxes, and contractual matters.
- Showing up in marketing — Every life coach needs to learn how to show up in marketing. Market yourself and your life coaching skills with a video, text, or post every day.
Let’s help you help more people 🙂
I invite you to book a breakthrough session with me. Fill out this form.
Most people tell me they experience a deep internal shift in themselves after this 1-hour with me.
Loving you 💚
Dipanshu.
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