Categories: Services

Does Life Coaching Certification Really Work?

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If you’ve wanted to get into the game of being a life coach, you may have seen sites promising you life coaching certification and wondered if that would help your chances. Life coaches are definitely necessary in this day and age, and perhaps for the first time ever it is possible to teach so many people on such a vast scale thanks to all of the technology we have. Because of this more and more people are trying to become a guru that helps others organize their life and make it a good one. So how about all of this talk about certification, is it even necessary?

Overview
Think of it like a personal trainer in the gym. If you see them walking around with what you consider to be the perfect body, you’d probably want them to show you the exact workout they do. You wouldn’t first ask them to show you their personal training certification, or ask for a résumé. The proof is right before your eyes. However, if there was a fat slob purporting to be a personal trainer he would have to do a lot of convincing to get you to agree to let him teach you, and you’d probably want to see his qualifications or any certifications.

The Claim
The claim of life coaching certification sites is that as a certified or credentialed life coach you will be able to attract more clients and be able to impress them enough so that they sign on with you. Or, that if you aren’t certified that it will limit your ability to be a life coach and that customers will choose a certified coach instead.

The Hype
The hype is that this is preying on people’s lack of confidence that they can be a life coach, and giving them a sort of security blanket that will make them feel better about their chances. Any promise of more money being made from being certified has got to be bogus. Some of the most successful gurus and self help authors out there don’t have any certification at all, and manage to do just fine, helping millions of people with their message.

The Cost

Life coaching certification varies, but can range from about $50 to over $500 or more depending on which company you go with. The more training that’s involved, the higher the cost in most instances. Be leery of places that want to charge you for certification without giving you any sort of training.

Do It to Learn
You could take a life coaching course to learn how to coach people, but don’t do it for the certification aspect. Use it to build your skills as a motivational speaker, or to brush up on your interpersonal communication. If you go into a program for the right reasons, you’ll get far more out of it.

Evaluation
One could make the argument that if you think you need life coaching certification, you’re probably not qualified to be a life coach. You should have enough proof of your qualification to give life advice by the type of life you’re living. You should be able to provide enough examples of your success, either through the amount of money you have, the world travels you’ve done, the major life goals you’ve accomplished, or your ability to help others through tough times, or to inspire them to greatness. These examples speak much louder than some piece of paper or logo you could put on your site.

Too Many Teachers, Not Enough Students?
So many people want to be a life coach and tell others how to get the most out of their lives, but are there really enough successful people out there to teach the rest of the world how to live? It seems like there is a pretty good bell curve of success, with a few ultra-successful people on the left, a big hump of mediocrity, and then a few horribly unsuccessful people on the right. But as long as you find yourself on the left hand side of the graph, there should be plenty of people on the right side of it that could be your prospective coaching clients.

Final Life Coaching Certification Review

Life coaching certification is not required to be a life coach, so don’t let anyone try to make the case that you can’t get started on your coaching venture until you’re certified.

However, taking a life coaching course is a good idea if you feel that you need some of the more specific skills on dealing with coaching clients and structuring your business. Often this is the first time people have ever needed these sort of skills, and if it’s unlike anything you’ve ever done you might feel like you need some guidance on getting started and keeping the business going once you’ve got it all up and running.

Our Recommendation
This is almost entirely about your confidence level. If you think that you need some certification to make you feel like you’re more ready to help others, than by all means get it. If you think that you are ready to get started now, and that it won’t really be a factor that you’re certified or not, then just start. It’s not as if clients are going to ask to see your certification, or that you’d even want to display it without being asked for it, so it’s really a personal choice.

What do you think? Does Life Coaching Certification work or not?

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View Comments

Maya says:

September 12, 2012 at 12:47 pm

I've always been interested in becoming a life coach because this has been suggested to me by many people over the years. I'm fit, healthy, and well educated, people have always come to me for advice and generally they were always happy after I gave it to them. I still get all sorts of consultations from friends and family, so I'm starting to think that maybe I have a future in this. I'm not saying I'll be charging my best friend for my time, but I can surely charge her friends for it. I want to be myself and I don't think I'll learn much with this, but having some sort of accreditation never hurts.