A life coach helps you realize your true values and your passions in life. Despite many stressors, this wellness professional can help create a more fulfilling and positive life. Note that the benefits of hiring good life coach are relatively endless, but you need to hire the right professional before you can reap these advantages.
Here are six things to consider as you look for the right life coach.
1. Authenticity and Certification.
The foundation of trust starts with honesty. Thus, one way to ensure that you’re taking the advice of a certified life coach is to ask for proof of authenticity.
It would be best if you understood that relatively anyone could become a life coach these days. For example, search for life advice on social media, and you can find several search results pointing to life gurus. However, many of these ‘gurus’ tend to give general suggestions, which might not be the advice you need. But wellness professionals attained certification in coaching to ensure you’re going to hear what you want to hear.
Seeking the help of a certified life coach lets you build a dynamic yet particular relationship with this expert. Therefore, the professional should offer specific suggestions based on different scenarios. This is because the right professional understands the different aspects of becoming a life coach.
For instance, you don’t want a ‘coach’ to tell you a vague suggestion like ‘be confident’ when you’re seeking ways to improve business relations. That ‘guru’ should know the required steps to help you improve relationships with clients and business partners.
If you hire a certified coach, you may have peace of mind as you know your money and time is going in the right place.
2. Specialization.
Different life coaches offer different pieces of advice. For example, a wellness professional with an expertise in building and sustaining couple relationships might not have the right suggestions for maintaining financial health.
Therefore, you should choose a life coach that coincides with your specific needs. As you’re searching for the right wellness professional, here are some of life coach certifications that you may look into:
- Certified Emotional Intelligence Coach (CEIC)
- Certified Goal Attainment Coach (CGAC)
- Certified Life Coach (CLC)
- Certified Motivational Coach (CMC)
- Certified Personal Development Coach (CPDC)
- Certified Career Transition Coach (CTC)
You can also find a wellness coach who specializes in providing meaningful advice for specific fields, like religion, relationships, wealth, and general health and wellness.
3. Empathy.
Empathy is one of the most important aspects of life coaching. This trait allows your wellness coach to relate and feel different scenarios, helping you see the bigger picture of your situation. A coach without empathy tends to focus on their feelings instead of their customers’ emotional and psychological states.
You’ll know if a certain life coach empathizes with their clients by the way they talk. Your coach’s tone shouldn’t be condescending. Instead, it should be full of feeling that shows that they understand what you’re going through in life.
With that in mind, hire a coach with experience in traveling or working in multicultural environments. If so, that professional may acquire the skill to see things from a different perspective, allowing you to take advantage of ‘outside-the-box’ solutions.
Thus, your chosen wellness expert should help you understand the correct feelings by empathizing with your current emotional and psychological state. In turn, you can develop actionable plans to help you grow as a person for the short- and long-term.
4. Positivity.
A wellness professional that lives a positive life will radiate positivity for their clients to absorb. Note that a positive attitude is essential to a coach, especially if they work with clients with several concerns. Also, positive thinking helps you focus on solutions instead of problems. This scenario paves the way for constructive thinking instead of concentrating on life’s faults.
A positive life coach incorporates motivation in their suggestions. It’s the ability to deliver energy and ‘zest’ in the goals you need to accomplish. For example, you might consider traveling from Point A to Point E in a straight line. But you might miss out on the wonderful things that you might miss from Points B to D.
Therefore, your chosen life coach, which exudes positivity, might teach you how to look at life from a different angle. In other words, see the forest for the trees instead of constantly trying to find a way out.
5. Accountability.
Always keep in mind that life coaches aren’t superior beings. These individuals are humans, much like yourself. Therefore, as humans, these professionals can still commit mistakes. Remember, an accountable coach is a humble coach.
Your chosen wellness professional should also be coachable and self-aware about the mistakes that they make. But it doesn’t mean that this individual should submit to all of their customers’ blame and complaints. Instead, the coach should know when to put their foot down when things seemingly get out of hand.
Furthermore, an accountable life coach will help you start reaching goals, instead of leaving you to look at them from afar. That accountability will resonate within you, helping you remove a perfectionist attitude that might set unrealistically high objectives.
If so, the wellness professional can help dictate the small steps you need to reach those large goals. In turn, you may see the best version of yourself. But always keep in mind that these positive results will take time.
6. Strategic Mindset.
If that person gives you vague pieces of advice, consider changing your life coach. Instead, opt for a wellness professional that shows you the steps on how to turn dreams into reality.
However, how would you know if the wellness coach you hire has a strategic mindset? You can listen to the way that person speaks during the initial interview. Find key points in the way they talk, such as:
- Connecting instead of correcting
- Respecting instead of confronting
- Bringing self-insight instead of telling
- Encourages your assessment instead of providing vague suggestions
- Provides clarity and stimulates critical thinking instead of relying on familiar habits
Looking at the points mentioned above, you may denote that the right life coach may have different thinking patterns than the average human being. For example, that expert might ask you, ‘what are the strategies you need to apply to take you to the next level in life?’
Remember, life coaches help you provide answers by letting you develop problem-solving skills. Hence, these professionals won’t have the answer to everything you ask of them.
Final Words.
Life coaches help their customers reach different life goals, ranging from career-oriented objectives to building meaningful relationships. Acquiring the help of a reliable and certified wellness professional can help you achieve your various life goals. But, first, consider the factors mentioned above to ensure you’re getting the professional help of a certified coach.
