Life Coach Career
Life Coach Career
The Real Poop
A life coach is someone who tells you how to live your life (and isn't your mother).
People will pay big bucks to have someone tell them what to do. If you're someone who has the inside track as to how everyone should live their lives, you could be making money from all of your insider knowledge. Spread your pearls of wisdom with the world. Share.
You want to help others be their best selves? To be all that they can be, don't you?
You don't want them to spend the rest of their lives as squishy slobs living on the couch in their parents' basement—you want them to have a beautiful house, a beautiful car, a beautiful spouse.
Or, maybe you'd just settle for getting them off of their parents' couch.
Whatever you decide to do, we know you'll be dang good at it because you're a life coach. You're good enough, and smart enough and doggonnit, people like you.
There's a big range when it comes to salary, and it depends on your specialty. The average pay for a life coach is around $35/hour or close to $62,000 a year according to some sources, and more like $160/hour according to others.
Things like location, accreditation, and good old fashioned chutzpah make all the difference.
Successful life coaches take home salaries in the six-figure range. Folks like Anthony Robbins, who is a life coach to professional athletes, entertainers, and even former Presidents take in millions. That is, when you count in all of their books, speaking engagements, TV shows, and audio tapes. Not bad for a guy who was an overweight janitor that didn't even graduate high school.
Most life coaches are well- educated, trained speakers with degrees in psychology or business. Many have experience as entrepreneurs.
Then again, some are just really good talkers.
Overcoming personal hardship (be it physical, or mental, or both) will be a plus in convincing people you know what you're talking about. Surviving a near death experience, beating the odds of a fatal disease, losing a ton of weight, or coming back from bankruptcy to invent turf-lined flip flops...any of these could be your calling card to life coach stardom.
Whatever drives you, you've also got to be great at self-promotion. This is an entrepreneurial job, not a nine to five with a steady paycheck. You're going to have to be creative if you want to get clients/survive.
Master social media. Use Twitter, Facebook, and anything else you can think of. Write an e-book and give it away free to entice people to listen to you and ultimately hire you as a life coach.
Network like crazy.
Speaking of crazy, coaching should definitely not be confused with psychology.
Coaching is in no way the same as using therapy to cure mental illness or get people to understand why they are the way they are.
Coaching is urging people to make a plan, focus on what they want, and take action to get it.
The focus with coaching is on the now, not in the past. It isn't a talking cure. It's all about action.
Coaching is more about instructing people in what they need to do to succeed.
Think of it like sports coaching. You give the client specific instructions as to how to win/be successful. It's not the same as treating someone or giving them therapy as a patient.