Am I Good Enough to Become a Life Coach?

Read on to discover confidence is NOT the first thing you need to become a brave, bold, vibrant life coach.

Talk about disheartening.  I just read an article on 6 traits you must have in order to become a life coach. In brief the author said you must be:

If I had taken that article to heart 10 years ago, I never would have trained to be a life coach. Even on my best days I doubt myself in at least half of those areas. Honestly, if you wait until you are confident and assured about your ability to do anything before you step out and start doing it, you will never move.

Confidence comes with time

In real life, confidence comes as we make mistakes, work toward a goal and overcome the inevitable ups and downs. It isn’t the place we start from.

Being consistent, learning to market ourselves, knowing our purpose, and the ability (and wisdom!) to ask the hard questions, are all traits and/or skills that grow as we go through the process of building a life coaching business.

The thing that holds us back from ever starting anything new, is the belief we have to have all our ducks in a row before we get started!

Interestingly enough, the first thing you see on the home page of the author’s website is this:

“I don’t know about you but I’m tired of people telling me that I should be getting up early, working out some way, eating this or that, reading a certain amount of books, meditating, journaling, developing a particular set of skills, posting on social media a certain amount, or even at all.
I’m tired of it because there is no single right way to be successful.
We get into trouble when we adopt other people’s way/formula of success as our own.” {Emphasis added}

Yet in that article he is encouraging you to have a certain set of skills, to adopt his formula, to become a successful life coach (based on his definition of success, I imagine)

I’m not picking on the author, he is doing something we all do. We have certain rules about how we think the world should work, but we don’t want those rules to apply to us. Rules are stifling. They require us to be something we are not, in order to fit into an acceptable mold.

You vs. the World

The world, in the form of what people around us say, what we see on TV, what we read on the internet, is forever trying to give us rules about how we “should” be in order to meet their standards. It says in order to be successful as a coach, we must have certain traits. In order to live the life of our dreams we must… be an Instagram star, or take the right personal development program, or whatever.

Well, who gets to define what success looks like for us? If our definition of success and our desires don’t line up with theirs, then their rules don’t apply either.

Truth is, we are complex creatures with layers of personality, strengths, desires, background, culture, experiences and biases. No one formula, or definition of success is going to fit everyone. We have to find the formula for ourselves and that comes through taking the journey.

Becoming a confident life coach is a journey

Becoming a life coach is a personal journey as well as a professional journey. Along the way you will learn more about who you are as a person. You will uncover untapped strengths and potential.

You will develop as a professional, learning the skills of selling, of taking consistent action, of asking the right questions. As you do, you’ll grow in confidence.

If you already had all of those traits mentioned at the start, you’d already be a successful, professional life coach.

Right now, right the way you are, you are good enough to become a beginner coach. Take the first step. Get this free Roadmap to Your Life Coaching Career.