Life Coaching Qualifications: What You Need To Know For Success
At present, life coaches are popping up everywhere. And the appeal of life coaching is easy to understand. You can choose when and where you work, as well as make more than £1000 weekly. On top of that, you can experience the satisfaction of helping someone else. But, you need some life coaching qualifications before becoming a successful life coach.
What Is Life Coaching? According to Wikipedia, “Life coaching is the process of helping people identify and achieve personal goals through developing skills and attitudes that lead to self-empowerment.” So, as a life coach, you’ll be teaching people how to put these principles to work for them. For instance, it can be their career or personal life. Usually, people get life coaches qualifications because they’re driven to help others. Yet, life coaches are more than some good listeners and advisors – they’re entrepreneurs. When you start a life coaching business, you become a marketer, a salesperson and a leader.
Role of a Life Coach As a life coach, you’ll be responsible for the well being & improvement of your client. So, before learning the life coaching qualifications, you need to know the responsibilities. Thus, you must make a list of responsibilities & complete those for each & every client. Here are some responsibilities necessary for the role of a life coach:
Interviewing clients to assess their backgrounds, needs & goals. Creating & adjusting strategies and goals as needed. Keeping records of each clients’ needs, goals, and progress. Providing health-related counselling, such as hygiene, diet & exercise. Analysing customers’ finance & incomes to assess their current situations. Offering tips and strategies to maintain healthy social & interpersonal relationships. Evaluating each & every customers’ general progress.
Average Salary of A Life Coach The annual salary of a life coach varies from £30,000 to £97,000. This is excluding bonuses, profits, commissions & overtime pays. Additionally, the working hour varies depending on each coach. It’s usually 30-32 hours per week. However, the working hour & total amount of your earnings depends on a few key factors, such as:
Skill Location Targeted Market Training/Experience
Required Life Coaching Qualifications You don’t need any particular degree or education to become a life coach. But it’s best if you have a background in Psychology, Education, Wellness, or even Business. A Coaching Certification from an accredited training program can give you credibility. It’ll make you more marketable as a coach. Still, life coaching is not for everyone. But, some personality traits & skills are more necessary for a successful life coach. You’ll need some must-have life coaching qualifications.
Essential Qualities of A Successful Life Coach To become a successful life coach, you need to have a set of skills. Also, you need some life coaching qualifications. Here is a list of skills that every life coach needs:
1. Expertise in A Coaching Niche: Life coaching may sound exciting and glamorous to some people. But it contains a lot of work and takes time to establish yourself and your business. So, you should think about what life coaches do. As a life coach, you need to help your clients answer:
What parts of their life need growth and development? What are their goals for those parts of their life?
How can they reach those goals?
There are several coaching fields if you have proper life coaching qualifications. For example Career, Business, Personal & Spiritual Life Coaching. So, you must find your particular coaching niche before becoming a coach.
2. Strong Assessment Skill: A 2009 research by McDowall & Smewing found some interesting results. It says that assessments increase the coach’s understanding of their trainee. Moreover, this can provide “The most powerful takeaway to trainees in terms of generating better self-insight and awareness.” Finally, using assessment is beneficial to the coach, trainees & the coaching process. Assessment is one of the most integral life coaching qualifications. They will help you have a better understanding of your clients. They also provide helpful self-insight and self-awareness to trainees. Also, it helps to create actionable goals with a complete understanding of themselves.
3. Problem-solving Skill: One of the main objectives of a life coach is to help guide a client through their problem. And you need to help them find a solution too. Thus, you need great problem-solving skill among your life coaching qualifications. First, you can start by probing & exploring the problem. Realize the mental state of the client & ask the source of the problem. Then, when you’re done gathering all these points, start solving the problem along with the client. Remember, you can only find the solution when the client sees the light at the end of the tunnel.
4. Strong Interpersonal Communication: Swift communication ability is a must-have for any successful life coach. Because they spend most of their time speaking with different people. It’s among the life coaching qualifications that help communicate with groups & individuals. It helps in their personal and professional lives as well. Usually, people with strong interpersonal skills tend to build good relationships. Furthermore, they can work in sync with others with ease. So, you must be aware of your communication with the trainees. Then, you must make sure they understand what you’re teaching. And keep an eye on whether they’re implementing those as well. This skill can help you be productive in the workplace. Besides, it’ll help build strong & positive relationships with the surrounding people. That’s why this is one of the most important life coaching qualifications.
5. Great Intuition & Decision-making Skills: Intuitive coaching is an advanced coaching technique. It relies on a coach’s intuitive skills to help guide people to achieve their dream life. Intuition life coaching depends on intuition & inner wisdom as the main guiding principles. With this sort of advice, the clients can live their best & most comforting lives. A coach helps clients become clear about the values of their decisions. They help the client to set a successful decision to develop and test options. Basically, he organizes the decision process into specific steps. After that, he helps them work through those by avoiding common decision traps. Usually, they use specific decisionmaking tools and resources to help the client. It analyses the issues involved & assesses risks. Then it evaluates available options and makes a wise decision. All in all, this one of the essential life coaching qualifications.
6. Patience & Open-mindedness: Clients who seek the help of a life coach are often confused or even lost. As you work to help them, your patience will be tested. Not to mention, it may take weeks or even months for your clients to move forward a bit. And they’ll be experiencing their own frustrations as well. Thus, you need the ability to find a way to settle
their frustrations and your own. This will be a major factor for the success of your partnership. So, your life coaching qualifications must include patience. As a life coach, you’re likely to face a wide range of clients. So, many of them will have different backgrounds, beliefs, and morals than your own. You must set aside your feelings and judgments to treat all clients with respect. If you can’t, then life coaching may not be the right path for you. Hence, open-mindedness has to be one of your life coaching qualifications.
7. An Optimistic Attitude: An Optimistic attitude is one of the essential life coaching qualifications. It provides amazing benefits because anyone can learn it. Optimism has shown to generate improved physical and mental health. Similarly, it boosts people’s performance, creativity and success. This, in terms, helps to meet their goals & dreams. Learning optimism through Life Coaching is a powerful way to find your Positive Path. Optimism is about positive choices and strategies. It’s about knowing you’re responsible for your life and that you can be effective on your behalf. Hence, you’ll have to learn from adversity and push yourself toward your goals and vision. Additionally, an optimist enjoys victories & accomplishments. They use them as fuel for their ongoing journey of discovery.
8. Ability to Motivate Others: Understanding motivation will give you many valuable insights into the human psyche. It helps you understand motivation’s source, why it changes, what increases/decreases it. The ability to motivate people is one of the must-have life coaching qualifications. Life coaches can motivate their trainees to be a better version of themselves. And, as a life coach, you will help your trainees assess their current situation. Thus, they’ll have a better understanding of how they can move forward.
9. Time Management Skill: Many people spend the majority of their time doing stuff that fills the day or reacting to calls and emails. This makes it difficult to grow their business. Time management will help them get clear on the things they love to do and create the biggest impact. Time management is one of the most integral life coaching qualifications. It can help you achieve a better work-life balance. As a life coach, you’ll have to help the clients simplify their to-do list. Moreover, you must prioritise & help focus their time on the most important activities. Thus, they’ll get clarity on the activities that produce th/e biggest results and the ones that don’t.
10. Stress Management Skill: Management of stress through coaching is quite possible. You can make your trainees feel better prepared to manage their daily demands. They can control their response & be ready to handle any new challenges as well. A coach who has a life coaching qualification can help people manage their stress. Stress management coaches can help people with tips and strategies for their stress-factors. They’ll start to feel renewed, more energized and ready to take action on their personal goals. Also, you can create coping strategies, boundary setting, relaxation techniques and so on. On top of that, you’ll have to be there to provide mentorship and support to maximize the progress.
Closing Note At present, there are many benefits to being a life coach. The largest benefit being the value you can give to other people. Being a life coach will prove transformational for you, your career and your life. Also, these life coaching qualifications can help conquer obstacles in their lives. You must learn more about it and dedicate yourself to it. So, you can give a quality experience to your trainees.