Are You Going Over Coaching Certification Criteria? STOP Right Now And Read This.
If you are considering different personal coaching trainings and going over different coaching certification ‘criteria’, then you need to rethink your criteria. I’m not saying that coaching certification criteria is not important, it is. If you get certified by the wrong life coaching training courses, or are trying to use coaching training for the wrong thing, then you could waste a lot of money on life coach training fees, as well as set yourself up for a hard road ahead in your coaching practice, or at least, disappointment.
The good news is that if you get the pprofessional coaching certification criteria right, then you can set yourself up for a better way to get coaching clients, or at least, a better situation than if you hadn’t explored doing the professional coaching certification thing the right way.
The Theory Behind Professional Coaching Certification: Volunteers for a Larger Purpose
Originally, professional coaching certification was set up for two reasons:
1. to set up standards for the industry and be able to guarantee a certain minimal level of coaching skill and coaching ethics to coaching clients
2. to position the professional coaching certification entities and the professional coaching certification associations offering the standards as the ‘Pharaohs” in the industry and insure the financial future of the creators of those entities
Assuring the financial future of the ICF or the coach training companies is probably not your concern, so let’s skip that and just concentrate on the first reason.
If all coaches in the industry started accepting certain coaching skills and ethics, then there would be more trust overall concerning all professional coaches, and therefore when you are looking for a coaching client, the market in general would be more open to working with you because they have ‘heard’ that coaches that met certain coaching certification criteria have done good coaching with people they know and trust.
Also, the theory of professional coaching certification was:
1. If I learn how to coach better, then I’ll do a better job with my coaching clients
2. If I get my professional coaching certification, then clients will come to me as soon as I hang out my shingle
3. If I get my professional coaching certification, then I’ll have instant credibility
4. If I get my professional coaching certification, then I’ll have more confidence
5. If I get my certification, then I’ll have job security
6. I’m not allowed to coach if I’m not certified, so I better get certified
A lot of that was valid, and some of it is even more important today than ever. Along with that, coaching certification forces you in to a community of coaches that have certain standards as well, therefore you are more likely to adopt high level coaching skills and standards because it all ‘rubs off’.
However, coach certification can’t do all that for you.
And the most important part of coach certification is the one that most coaches value the least.
The most important coaching certification criteria is whether or not that coaching certification teaches you high level coaching skills and helps you to meet a certain level of coaching standard.
Why?
Because that level of coaching skill that you have can never be taken away from you. Knowledge can be forgotten. A certificate can get lost, or an accreditation can need to be renewed, but skills can be updated and revitalized very quickly, even if they’ve atrophied. Once you learn, practice, and prove yourself in relationship to your new coaching skills, then you’ll never go back to the life or business you had before those skills.
You can always learn to be a better marketer or salesperson, but your reputation and your client reactions are based upon your coaching skills. nothing more, nothing less. So next time you are evaluating coaching trainings, use this is your top coaching certification criteria.
Jeffrey T. Sooey
CEO, JTS Advisors
Technorati Tags: Coaching Certification Criteria, Professional Coaching Certification
Coaching Certification Criteria, Professional Coaching Certification
Coaching Certification Criteria, Professional Coaching Certification
The International Coach Federation (ICF) has certain coaching certification ‘criteria’ if you want to become a coach who has some credentials after your name. The ICF has 3 levels of certification, each with separate coaching certification ‘criteria’. Some people see certification as a valuable requirement to become a coach; others see it as a ‘money pit’. Which is it? Become a coach who makes your own decision.
What are the most important 
