Life Coach Training

A life coach is a person who helps his clients lead a better and enhanced life. He hears them out and provides suggestions that help them make sense of their situation and find a way out of it. Sometimes, we are so bogged down by something that we fail to see things clearly and we need someone to help us simplify them, and a life coach does just that. But a life coach is not called for only in troublesome situations. He guides his clients on their professional life too. Many times, people confuse a life coach with a therapist or even a psychiatrist, but this is far from the truth. The profession of life coaching is one of great responsibility. Proper training as a life coach is required to be able to deal with clients and truly help them out. In this article, I have provided some basics of becoming a life coach and training for the same.

Life Coaching Explained

In the introduction above, I have given a brief idea as to what a life coach is in a broad sense. But if you are planning on becoming one yourself, you will need a more in-depth understanding of the job of a life coach. A life coach is usually approached by people when there are some big changes taking place in their lives and they are finding it difficult to deal with these changes. The changes may be of different kinds, like career change, emotional break downs, starting a new business by quitting the current job, or rethinking life in general. The life coach is supposed to give these troubled people an outsider's opinion on their life. Sometimes, just hearing them out and making them realize their own answers is all the coach has to do. So a life coach has to be psychiatrist, a therapist, and a friend at the same time. You need certain qualities to become a life coach. The next couple of paragraphs will tell you how to become a life coach and more.

How to Seek Life Coach Training

There are several ways of training to become a life coach. Some of them are mentioned below. The easiest way is to take up a certification in this field. But there are some other options too.

Take Up a Certification Program
The prime requisite of this profession is a genuine willingness to help people out. Unfortunately that cannot be taught, but for other aspects of the job you can join some good institute for life coach training. The International Coach Federation (ICF) is one such institute that provides proper training. The certifications available are Master Certification, Professional Certification and associate Certification. The certifications differ in the course durations and actual projects undertaken as a part of the course. Master certificate is by far the most rigorous course but also the best one and gives you the highest salary.

Sign Up for Online Training
Similar to the certifications mentioned above, there are many online courses available. Some of them are distance learning courses while some provide you with free training. But accreditation may be lacking with most of these courses. So it is very important to verify all the details of the institute or website providing the course. Lately some reputed universities have started offering online courses with proper certification. But without much actual practice and interaction, the usefulness of such courses is questionable.

Train Yourself
You can also choose to train yourself and if you are passionate about this career, you will definitely be successful. There are tons of books on life coaching to choose from. The life coaching handbook by Curly Martin can be a good starting point. For Christian life coach training you will have to read about the principles and philosophy of Christianity also. After doing some research and studying all the basics, you can contact a life coach and work with him as an intern. This will give you first hand experience of life coaching and you'd probably turn out better than most certified coaches.

I hope I have covered enough basics about life coach training, to help you get started. If you enter this profession with an honest intention of helping people out, nothing can stop you from becoming a successful life coach. All the best!