by Charles Barnard
Choosing a life coach should not be an exercise that is taken lightly. You should be expecting to invest several thousand dollars in the services and spending several weeks, to months working with your life coach. Because of the nature of what you should be seeking, choosing a life coach can be equated to choosing the right college. You want to do your best to get it right.
When choosing a life coach, you need to look at the education, training, and experience of the coach. You want to investigate the process they have for choosing clients and for getting results. You want to make sure you and your coach are clear on the objectives and you want to be certain the approach of the coach is well-designed to get you to your objective. Most importantly choosing a life coach is about a relationship. You need to feel like you will be able to work with the coach, while also understanding that their job is to help you to make changes that can be challenging. That relationship is important.
Choosing a life coach, their education and training.
Choosing a life coach means you need to look at the knowledge and training the coach brings to the table. Their specified knowledge and skills are one piece to the problem. Life coaching is about helping you develop the tools necessary to achieve your desired outcomes in all facets of your life. If you want a business coach, hire a business coach. If you want a relationship coach, hire a relationship coach. If you want a fitness coach, hire a fitness coach. A life coach should be able to coach in the development of habits, emotional management skills, attitude development that transcend all areas of your life, but will not necessarily address specific areas of your life such as clearly defined fitness goals.
Any coach, but especially a life coach, should have knowledge and skills around teaching or coaching. Because someone has knowledge does not mean they are good at imparting that knowledge and helping you develop and use the knowledge they are imparting. Very often the best at doing something are not the best at teaching or coaching that skill.
I still remember attending a baseball coaches clinic sponsored by the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. The Red Sox hitting instructor at the time was a former, very accomplished player. He had a long and distinguished career as hitter. He could not though answer adequately any question from any of the coaches in attendance because he didn’t know; it was all unconscious for him. He never really studied his craft; he just did his craft. He only lasted as hitting instructor a couple of seasons. He was an excellent hitter in his career, but couldn’t coach hitting. It was two different skill sets.
You would be looking for educational background that would include any of a variety of psychology or therapeutic intervention as well as teaching or coaching training. Ideally when choosing a life coach you are choosing someone who will be training you to be your own life coach. Presumably, you do not want to be dependent on a therapist or counselor or coach for a life time. You should not be expecting to maintain this coaching relationship indefinitely. Having said that, a good life coach can be called on to provide short term intervention after the initial coaching experience or training is completed. Sometimes people will become stuck and need to get unstuck.
Case in point, I worked with a high school senior whom I had worked with previously, before an important baseball playoff game. He was going against a higher seeded team and one of the top pitchers in the state. He needed to be on his A game. I worked with him for 10 minutes just prior to the game. He lost the game in the bottom of the 10th inning 1 to 0. He threw less than 100 pitches for the entire game. He was on his A game.
Life Coaching Their Experience
It is possible to find a young person who has all the right education to be an effective life coach. You may even like the new perspective a young person can bring to the table, however, do they have enough life experiences to be congruent in their messaging? In other words, do they walk their talk? Have they had enough life experiences themselves that demonstrate the use of the techniques they are trying to coach you in? If they do, awesome, they may be a great choice.
Let me use two different examples to help illustrate my point. If you want to lose weight would you go see an obese fitness coach or doctor or nutritionist? If you and your spouse are struggling in your marriage but want to keep it together would you and your spouse want to see a counselor who has been married three different times? In each scenario, you would want someone who exhibited the very traits you are hoping to attain for yourself, wouldn’t you?
Choosing a life coach then should entail look not only at their life experiences, but also their professional experiences. You should be trying to discern if they have the necessary practical application of their knowledge and skills. It is possible that someone has the book knowledge needed but haven’t had to truly apply that knowledge in their professional setting. They are seeking to change careers and use skills and knowledge they haven’t been honing for an extended period of time. That is not to say such a person won’t be good at coaching you. It is simply another factor you should be investigating to make a wise decision.
Choosing a life coach the time commitment and relationship
One question you will want to ask is how much access do you have to your coach. The more access generally the more the cost, but the more guidance you should be getting. You will also want to be clear if this access is one to one, small group, or some of each. You would want to know if the coach is providing you with any resources you can use after the coaching or training program is completed. What is their policy if you do get stuck and need further assistance?
Undoubtedly, a life coach should be about not only teaching knowledge and showing you how to care for your mental health and well-being, but they should be helping you develop the habits necessary to incorporate that into your life. Without the habits, the knowledge and skills will never allow you to fully take control of your life. Habits though are your responsibility, but the coach should not be simply passing that responsibility onto you without building a culture of accountability for you. It is the most challenging job of a life coach, but choosing a life coach who recognizes that challenge and doesn’t shy away from it is one who is worth the investment.
I have seen many athletes and families invest hundreds to thousands of dollars in sport specific skill training where the athlete never really develops the coached skill because they meet a couple times a week over several weeks and that is all. The behavior never takes root even though they have been shown, coached, and instructed in what they need to do. The behavior was never made into an unconscious habit. You should be asking a life coach what they will do to help you create a habit even while you must understand the coach cannot create the habit for you.
Lastly, you want to be very clear on how you will be charged. Are you being charged by the hour or by the training or both. A life coach will typically start at around $125 per hour and go up from their depending on their experience and reputation. Training programs can run a few hundred to a few thousand dollars depending on the length and objectives of the program. Very, very few life coaches offer any sort of guarantee any more than any school offers any guarantee on what you get for investing in the courses taken or degree you earn. Ultimately, a life coach relies on their reputation for getting results and that reputation may play into your decision in choosing a life coach.
