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Want To Become a Life Coach? Learn These 6 Principles

At the core of every great life coach, six principles exist.

Why?

Because a life coach is not someone who tells their clients what to do.

Instead, great life coaches are people who hold space for their clients, ask powerful questions, and empower them to own their agency.

The best part about being a life coach?

Your contribution to the world multiplies every time you help a client because with each client’s life improved, those clients also go on to make the world a better place.

Your impact as a life coach knows no bounds.

Your unique life experience combined with a life coach Certification from The Life Coach School gives you what you need to change your life and the lives of others.

And it all starts with these six principles.

#1. Coaches Lead Sessions

As a coach, it can feel “easy” to lead clients in a session when the client brings a problem to the table.

But what happens when a client starts the session with, “I don’t really have anything to work on today”?

Some coaches panic and scramble to find something to fill the time.

Other coaches say great and end the call.

But there is always something to work on. We’re human, after all.

This is why it’s important that as a life coach you lead each and every session with your client. No matter what the client brings to the session to work on, or if they show up feeling great, you have a plan in place to help the client improve their life.

#2. Coaches Use a Framework

At The Life Coach School, we use what’s called the Model to help clients process their lives and see their own thinking.

As a life coach, our goal is not to solve our client’s problems or tell them what they should do.

Instead, our goal is to help our clients see their own thinking, so they can make the best possible decision for themselves in a given moment.

To do this, life coaches use frameworks or processes to organize what our clients bring to each session. This allows us to sort through it all and find the one thing to work on for the session.

This helps us hold space for our clients.

#3. Coaches Hold Space for their Clients

It’s tempting to jump “into the pool” with clients when they bring a problem to a session. Jumping into the pool means believing the client’s story.
We’re human. This is normal for us to want to let our client know we feel for them, but this is not our job as a life coach.

Instead, our job is to help our clients see their own thinking, guide them along their path to choose new thoughts, and support them as they take different actions to improve their lives.

When we jump “into the pool” with our clients, we cut off our ability to actually help them change their thinking so they can improve their lives.

When we hold space for our clients, they’re allowed to jump into the pool and share their thoughts, feelings, and actions, while we stay out of the pool and are able to effectively reflect their thinking back to them.

#4. Coaches Do Not Have an Agenda for their Clients

The client’s life is their own.

They get to choose what thoughts they think, the emotions they feel, and the actions they take.

The results of their actions are their own.

As life coaches, we focus on being a mirror to our clients so they can gain perspective on their own lives.

We also exist to ask our clients open-ended questions to reveal their own thoughts, feelings, and actions to them.

We empower them to learn about themselves so they can do what’s right for their lives. While we may want to jump in the pool with our clients, tell them what to do, or even solve their problems for them, it’s important we don’t do that.

When we have an agenda for our clients’ lives, we rob them of their agency and choice.

Instead, we empower them to take control, take action, and turn their dream life into reality.

#5. Coaches Do Not Attempt to Fix or Solve the Clients’ Problems’

When someone we care about shares their struggles with us, we naturally go into problem-solving mode.

We have ideas on how they could do something or say something different to solve their problem. So, we share it with them. Life coaches do not do this.

Life coaches work to hear their clients; identify the thoughts, feelings, and actions; and help the client see what they’re thinking, feeling, and doing.

This is all to help the client understand that their results start with their thoughts, and that they can change their thoughts, take different actions, and get different results.

Ultimately, a life coach helps the client process and gain perspective, so the client can manage their own thoughts, emotions, and actions to solve their own problems.

#6. Coaches Stay Out of the Pool

When coaches lead sessions, use a framework like the Model, hold space for clients, remain neutral, and do not attempt to fix our client’s problems, coaches give their clients what they truly need to change their own lives.

All of this is what’s called staying out of the pool.

When coaches have sessions with clients, they want the client to be in the pool, swimming around, sharing their problems and struggles.

Coaches stay out of the pool, so they can stay objective, ask questions, and offer their clients perspective.

If a coach jumps in the pool with the client, the coach loses objectivity, which leads to the client losing their coach.

Great coaches stay out of the pool, so their clients can improve their lives.

Are You Ready to Become a Life Coach?

Every coach who’s certified through The Life Coach School’s Coach Certification Program started off exactly where you are today—wanting to find their purpose, but scared things might not work out.

Now they’ve built a career, and life, that’s beyond their wildest dreams.

It’s time to take a chance on yourself and see what results you can create in your own life.

But what if it is possible...?