If you’re asking this question, the quick answer is no. That’s right.
By now you may already realize that there is no central governing board or certification process for life or business coaches. There is no governmental agency that issues licenses. There is no state run accreditation process.
Although there are both small and large coaching organizations and associations, there is no official licensing process required before you get started. So, again, the short answer is that you don’t have to have a Certificate. In fact, you could hang out your shingle as a life or business coach and get started today.
Now that we have the “Is a Life Coaching Certificate required?” question addressed… let me suggest a new and more important question to ask:
“What does it take to become an effective and successful life or business coach?”
There are a lot of different angles to take this question, but I’m going to answer it in a way that seems way too simple but it’s wildly true. Since you don’t need an official certificate or license to be a life coach, the true test for a coach is… are they really, really good at what they do?
No one cares where you got your coaching certificate.
It’s true. Out of the 100’s of people that I’ve coached, I’ve only had a handful ask whether I had a certificate. And even when they did, they just wanted a simple “yes or no” answer. (And I can also say that our elite life coach certification graduates have had a similar experience.) Why? Because… you’re potential coaching clients don’t really care whether you are “certified” or not. They don’t.
They just care whether you are an excellent coach.
They care whether you can help them to achieve the things that they want to achieve. They want to know if you can help them uncover the things that are buried deep within them. They want to know whether they can feel safe and encouraged by working with you. They want to know whether they will feel truly heard. They want to know that their lives will be dramatically impacted by working with you. That’s what they want to know.
So, again, you don’t have to have a coaching certificate to be a life coach.
You just have to be really, really good at it.
As a result… when it all gets boiled down… even though a piece of paper saying “Life Coaching Certificate” at the top isn’t required, you do want to pick a process that will prepare you to be an excellent life or business coach.
You want to find a process that, in addition to your Life Coach Certificate, will help you to:
· Know your role and help you to clearly define how you bring value to your clients
· Ask your clients powerful questions that will help them to uncover and own their solutions
· Be confident in a coaching process so you can coach anyone from any background with incredible confidence
· Assess your strengths and know how to build a wildly successful coaching practice on those strengths
· Build a marketing plan that will enable you to launch your coaching practice and successfully connect with your target market
· Know how to handle the logistics of a coaching practice so you can build your business with certainty
· Continue to grow as a coach… even as your practice continues to grow and flourish
So… do you need a Life Coaching Certificate to coach? Nope. You just have to be a freakishly amazing life coach.
Can you do it? We believe you can… especially if you intentionally choose a proven process that will help you to prepare for it and achieve it!
These are the very things that have helped the graduates of The Coach Mindset not only make an impact on the people they feel called to help but also to build a profitable and sustainable life coaching practice.