The Life Coaching Industry Is Thriving (And the Two Things You Should Look for in a Life Coaching School)
Life coaching has developed into an enormous industry today. But to be a successful life coach, you first need to be trained by institutions with the right qualities.
Some people have doubts about becoming a life coach. And whenever they think about taking this career path, troubling questions cloud their minds.
Does life coaching even work?
Will it work for me?
Can I make enough as a life coach?
These questions leave them confused and hesitant about pursuing that path. And chances are, they may be running through your own mind, too.
If that’s the case…
Stop fretting.
That’s because the life coaching industry is bigger than what many think or realise. It’s now a $15 billion industry today – the second-fastest growing industry in the western world.
What’s more, the two biggest business schools in the world – Harvard and Wharton – both offer life coaching courses. One in three Fortune 500 companies either have a life coach on a contract basis or as a staff, and they get paid at least $500 an hour.
Here in Australia, PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) reports that an average life coach earns $100,000.
So, what can you infer from all this information?
Well, two things:
- More people are setting up life coaching practices today.
- Yes, you can make it as a life coach.
However, you can’t just wake up one day and become a life coach. You still need to do several things first, one of which is getting coaching training in an educational institution. There, you’ll gather the necessary knowledge needed to open a life coaching practice.
To excel in the profession, you really need to enroll in the right institution. So, how do you know which one is the right one?
This article will cover the two things you need to look for in a life coaching school.
The 2 Criteria
Criteria #1 – Face-to-Face Interactions
As you know, a lot of courses today are learnt online. Learning institutions simply provide students with online modules, which contain their reading materials. The students study those and then undergo an examination. Upon completion, a certificate is issued to them, and that’s it.
It’s true that online training works for some courses.
But to set you up for a career in life coaching, that approach isn’t really effective. You need face to face interactions, and there are two reasons for this:
Reason #1. Higher Completion Rate
According to the National Center for Vocational Educational Research, online training courses have a 10 to 15% completion rate. Meanwhile, trainings that utilise face-to-face interactions have a completion rate that is above 90%.
If you’re going to invest in yourself to become a coach, the minimum requirement is that you complete the course, of course. This helps you develop your skills faster and set up a better coaching business.
Reason #2. Effectiveness
I believe learning has two aspects – core and supplementary.
You receive core learning via face-to-face interactions in a room, which is instrumental to great success. On the other hand, supplementary learning is what you get when you learn away from the classroom – it’s just additional learning.
Think of it this way:
Let’s say you’re learning how to drive a car.
You’ve got a book that teaches you how to drive. Not to mention it has information about rules on the road, car maintenance, and so on.
If you learn all that from the book alone, will that make you a driver?
Of course not!
You need to be in a car and get hands-on training from another person before you can actually drive a car. You can’t learn how to drive a car using just a book – you’ve got to be in the car itself to practice driving.
It’s the same with life coaching training.
There are things about life coaching you can’t just read up and understand. Face-to-face interactions with a qualified mentor are crucial for you to learn those things. And those things will make you a better life coach compared to others.
Criteria #2 – Independent Accreditation
Some life coaching schools have a habit of creating accreditation badges for themselves. That is, they make these badges look independent of them when in fact they’ve created that independent body.
It’s cheeky behaviour.
To avoid falling prey to such institutions, you need to know what to look for. And that’s the International Coaching Federation (ICF) badge, accreditation, and score.
The ICF is the number one independent accrediting body worldwide in coaching. They set the standard for training organizations in curriculum, coaches, quality of graduates, and so on.
They audit an institution’s curriculum to ascertain its quality. Also, they look into a school’s list of recent graduates and watch them deliver a coaching session. This way, they ensure that the school is passing people that they themselves would pass. They also ensure that the coaches are ICF-certified.
It’s an arduous process for accredited institutions, but it’s brilliant. Keep in mind that these standards must be met every three months, which is the renewal period of the accreditation. So, when you enrol in an ICF-accredited institution, you know you’re getting quality training.
Now, if you want to go be a transformational coach – someone who’s cognizant of people’s behavioural patterns – you must have neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) training. It’s a great toolkit for any life coach. And if you’re going to get NLP training, your trainer must be accredited by the NLP Association of Australia. They set the standard when it comes to NLP training.
Ultimately, when you get training from institutions with the right accreditations, you have a better chance of success in the life coaching industry.
Get Quality Life Coach Training Today
The life coaching industry has grown into a multi-billion industry… and it continues to grow. As a result, more people are getting interested in pursuing the path of being a life coach.
While anyone can say they want to be a life coach, not all of them will have the skill and knowledge required to be one – and a great life coach at that.
That’s why the first step to becoming a life coach is to fill in the knowledge gap by getting coaching training from the right educational institution.
That said, you must look out for two things in a life coaching school:
First, they should offer face-to-face interactions. It’s more effective than online training.
Second, the institution has the right accreditation from the right independent body.
Even if you read all books related to life coaching, it won’t be effective if you don’t get personal training. In the end, that’s what guarantees your success in this growing industry.
