If you think that the life coaching business is without its own share of dirty laundry, you’re fooling yourself. The statistics show that the average salary for a life coach during the first year is about 12K. That’s only 1K above the 2008 poverty level for a single person in the U.S. That means that the average person is better off working for minimum wage than starting a life coaching business. If you really want to become a life coach professional, and help raise the average salary of a life coach, there are a few items you must clean up.

How You Can Help to Raise the Average Salary of a Life Coach

The first thing you can do to help raise the average salary of a life coach is pay for coaching. I can’t tell you how many coaches tell me, “I can’t afford coaching yet because I’m not making money in my life coaching business yet,” or, “I’m trading coaching with another coach.” But the truth is that you don’t really value coaching yourself enough to shell out your hard earned cash, or you aren’t willing to do what it takes to make it happen.

Why Paying for Life Coaching Helps the Bottom Line of Your Life Coaching Business

The reason that affects the average salary of a life coach is not because it maintains some sort of incestuous relationship within the coaching community. It’s that, if you don’t know the value of paying for life coaching, you won’t enroll people into coaching yourself. How are you going to ask them to pay for something that you aren’t willing to pay for yourself? It’s just a bad life coaching business practice.

You Must Value Your Time to Raise the Average Salary of a Life Coach

The other reason why the average salary of a life coach is so low is that most coaches don’t value their own time to charge for coaching. And if that’s really the case, it’s time to take more coaching courses before you start your life coaching business. You definitely need skills to transform someone’s life, but ask yourself if it’s training you are lacking or confidence in your ability to produce value.

Your Salary Reflects the Accountability in Your Life Coaching Business

But the real reason that the average salary of a life coach is so low is that they don’t walk their own talk. Starting your own life coaching business is no more challenging than any other type of business. Unless you’re willing to live on the edge and commit to action, how are you going to get others to do the same? There challenges are no easier than yours. No one is going to pay you unless they perceive you as the key to getting what they want.

Colette Seymann
JTS Advisors Designated Accountability Coach