Keep in Mind This is Not a Comprehensive Guide to Becoming a Life Coach
People often ask how to become a coach. It is typically asked by individuals who enjoy helping others, seek personal and professional growth, and are looking for a fulfilling career. This type of person often has a wide range of interests and life experiences. All these things provide a good foundation to become a life coach, but as you might imagine, there’s more to it than that.
Many people who enter the coaching field come from professions that already involve people skills – such as teaching, consulting, personal training, human resources management, business consulting, sales, healthcare, journalism, ministry, parenting, and social work, just to name a few.
These individuals can build on their existing skill set with additional coach-specific training. Depending on how prepared they are to serve through coaching, they may need anything from a weekend workshop to a two-year program to bring them to the level of professional coach competency.
In addition to learning new coaching skills, some people will need to “unlearn” some of their usual ways of responding. For example, consultants often have strong skills in asking questions and solving problems, but they tend to switch to “fix-it” mode right away. They will need to learn how to step back and allow the client to develop their own solutions. Similarly, parents may have a lot of experience handling their own family dynamics, but they will need to learn how to keep an open mind when dealing with the family situations of others.