Can I become a life coach? If you are asking this question – the answer is a resounding YES! Anyone can become a life coach. It doesn’t require an Einstein-like brain…but it does require certain traits. Do you have these traits?

Answering the Question – Can I Become a Life Coach?

There are certain professional and personal qualifications needed to become a successful life coach. Do you have them? What are they? To answer the question – Can I become a life coach? – you should see how you measure up against this list of qualifications. You don’t need Einstein’s brain, but you do need the these six traits.

The 7 Most Important Traits for Life Coaches

1. Trust and integrity. For a genuine coaching/client relationship to develop and mature, trust has to be clearly present and reciprocal. The best way to gain trust is through integrity. A life coach’s integrity must be genuine and consistent.
2. The ability to subordinate you needs, biases, and judgments. A successful coach needs to be objective and to view the client through a non-subjective lens.
3. Don’t tell. Good coaches don’t tell a client what to do nor do they control their actions. Coaches merely act as guides; they help clients create a road map to their objectives or locate a pathway to their goals. Advice is sometimes given, but as long as it is not in the form of a command or an instruction.
4. Listening skills. Are you a good listener? That is one of the questions that go along with – can I become a life coach? Clients are opening their hearts and souls to you, and you must reciprocate this vulnerability with good listening habits. A good listener is not someone who is waiting to respond; a good listener takes in everything the client says before formulating a response.
5. Observational skills. Being observant goes along with being a good listener – part of listening is to observe body language, notice a change in tone, and take in everything that is happening with the client.
6. Excellent phone and email skills. This may sound trivial to some, but there are far too many coaches out there who neglect this part of their business. You are never, never, never too busy to send a reply email. Just an acknowledgment of message received is sometimes enough. Clients, potential clients, and peers will often base their opinion of your coaching services on how promptly and professionally you reply to their messages or inquiries.
7. The gift of coaching. This is similar to Einstein’s brain and contradicts the first paragraph. Not everyone has the goods to be a life coach; you must possess the gift of coaching. People with the “gift” care less about their own success than they do about the success of their clients. Instead of focusing on themselves, they focus on their clients. The other six traits can be taught, but this trait may actually be one you need to be possess. If you are asking yourself – can I become a life coaching professional? – you need to search deep inside your soul to see if you have the gift of coaching. If you do, answering the question – can I become a life coach? – is easy.

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Fred Philips
Business Coach
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