6 Considerations When Choosing A Life Coach
Choosing a life coach, a person to help you make decisions to become a happier and more successful person, is a pretty big commitment. How do you know that you are choosing the right one?
Below, we will suggest six things that you should consider when looking for a life coach to make sure that you pick one that will work well with you to accomplish your goals.
The best sources for choosing life coaches come from within the industry. As a result, many of the resources linked in this article are from the blogs of companies that provide life coaching. This should not be seen as an endorsement of those companies.
1. Is The Coach Successful?
One of the best ways to determine whether a life coach is right for you is to look at the life that that coach has lived. This is true for two main reasons. The first is that if a life coach has achieved the kind of success that you want, they clearly know how to achieve that kind of success.
The other reason is that there are many different kinds of success and if you and your life coach see success differently it may be difficult for you to work together to get the results that you want.
Most Life Coaches will have biographies out there that can help you to learn about them.
Many life coaches have also written books, often biographies or self-help books. Both of these can be good ways for you to learn about the individual, their life, and their coaching style before you go any further. Even if your potential Life Coach hasn’t written a book, they likely have a social media presence that should give you some insights about them.
2. Is The Coach Experienced?
The life that that coach has lived is important, but so are the lives that that coach has touched. Most Life Coaches will have references and recommendations from clients that they have worked with.
Don’t just look for clients that seem happy or successful, look for clients who are very different from one another. This will show that the coach is experienced with handling a wide variety of people and situations.
3. Is The Coach Accredited?
A Life Coach is not the same as a therapist, but allow us to draw an analogy by asking that you wouldn’t go to a therapist who wasn’t certified, would you?
Once again, the certification process and agencies for becoming a therapist are very different from those required for being a life coach, but life coaches still need to be certified.
Before starting work with a life coach, see that they are certified and consider doing some research on the group that certified them to make sure that you are satisfied not only with their certification, but with the certification itself.
4. Does The Coach Come Highly Recommended?
On the topic of certification agencies, those agencies often offer referrals. Referral services can help you find a life coach that is right for you, but they also mean that you are choosing from a larger pool of potential Life Coaches.
Some people think that there is also more credibility attached with going through referrals from the certification agency than picking from a particular company because the certification agency doesn’t get money based on which Life Coach you choose, while a company does.
5. Has Anyone You Know Worked With The Coach?
If you go with a life coach near you, consider asking around to know if anyone you know has a recommendation. Chances are you heard about Life Coaching from someone you know, so talk to that person about their experience.
As mentioned above, different people have different ideas of success, so the life coach that a friend or family member had may not be right for you, even if they had a good life coach. Talking to other people about their experiences might be a good way of finding a good life coach for yourself, or it might not. Either way, it will help you to understand what having a life coach is like, and what you can expect form the experience.
6. Do You Want A Life Coach Who You Always See Eye-To-Eye With?
Another thing to consider is exactly how much you want to have in common with your Life Coach. You should have a life coach that you can work with, but some people see value in having a Life Coach that is not too similar to themselves, someone who will propose new ideas and introduce you to new ways of thinking.
Choosing a life coach is a big decision in a number of ways, and there are lots of things that you should ask yourself (and your potential coach) before making any commitment. This article didn’t give a complete list, but hopefully it got you thinking.
