Free Business & Life Coaching

Becoming a coach or life coach can be a really great and exciting career choice and it is something that is becoming more and more popular. You can work from your own home if you want dispensing advice as well as wisdom from your own life experiences, to others, and get paid for it. You can talk with clients on the phone, through emails and in person. Being a life coach is somewhat like being a counselor but you don't need any kind of college degree or the same kind of accreditation that a counselor does. But, there are schools out there that that teach coaching and do offer accreditation and this should seriously be considered in order for others to take you more seriously.

Before becoming a coach, you really need to know what a life coach is and what they actually do. A life coach is one that assumes a guidance position for others who uses their own personal experiences, professional achievements and their own objective insight to help others. They also are a sounding board for others who are just not sure about their goals in life and other issues.

When becoming a coach you need to be an effective listener who will allow their clients to discuss one or more of their goals and then the coach will asks questions so their client can consider the different choices from different perspectives.

Before becoming a coach you should decide whether you have enough motivation as well as desire to pursue such a career. You need to figure out if you are ready to be an inspirational figure for others. You don't want to impose your own will or opinions on others instead you need to be ready to listen and it may be something that you may have to learn to do. Only by listening will you be able to help clients come to their own decisions so they can live better and happier lives.

You should conduct your own assessment of your personal skills before becoming a coach. This is something that could take a while to do so you need to you will need to be patient. Some of the skills you need to have are listed below:

• Know how to have open communications
• Know how to set healthy boundaries between professional and personal issues
• Must have patience
• Must have good listening skills
• Should have some sales and marketing skills in order to build a client base
• Should have office management skills for record keeping and account balancing
• Need to have a positive attitude

One thing you can do before becoming a coach is to ask people that you know if they think that you might make a good life coach.

You really need to want to be self-employed. So you will need to decide whether or not you really want to handle the business side of things for your coaching practice. This means that you will need to take care of all the office duties such as ordering supplies, preparing client files including session notes, collecting payments, paying bills and marketing your business.

You will need to polish your skills and even focus your skills towards a certain coaching niche. This means you should consider specializing and cater to certain types of clients instead of spreading yourself thin by offering your services to all clients. Later on as your client base increases you might be able to offer help to all types of clients, but in the beginning it's always a good idea to try and find a niche you are best at. It could be business, it could be spiritual to relationships. It is what you have the most experience at that you should focus on.

If you are serious about becoming a coach then you will need to create materials as well as resources that are going to help your clients. It is always a good idea to give clients reading materials that might help them after their sessions or give them reading recommendations that might help as well. You should also create your own procedures manual that contains your policies, procedures as well as your principles for your coaching business.