Do you have to be certified to be a life coach? This post will give you the simple truth. If you are thinking about becoming a life coach, this is for you.
You do not need to be certified to work as a life coach. Anyone can call themselves a life coach. As long as a life coach does not claim to treat mental health conditions, they are free to coach without licensing or supervision.
Life coaches are not (currently) regulated by any government organization in the United States. While mental health counselors must pass state licensing exams and obtain a counseling license before they can legally accept clients.
Most life coaches welcome the lack of red tape in the life coaching industry. Many traditional counselors welcome it too, choosing to leave mental health and become coaches. The freedom to practice as you please is causing the field to grow by leaps and bounds.
We recommend that you get trained and certified before working as a life coach. But of course, it’s ultimately up to you to decide if you have the skills and abilities to work as a life coach without the proper training and certification. Read these reasons below to decide for yourself:
8 Reasons to Become a Certified Life Coach:
1. Certification includes professional training. Even if you have a gift for working with people, you need to know the specific skill set that defines life coaching. It will turn your gift into an extraordinary tool that changes people’s lives.
2. Colleagues. Getting certified as a life coach, if you choose a good organization to train with, allows you to meet other coaches.
From these relationships comes more opportunity to network and build your business than most people can achieve otherwise.
3. Your personal development. Good life coaching institutes ask their students to work on their own. At the iNLP Center, you will apply each NLP technique or coaching personally before using it with volunteers or clients. This makes all the difference when marketing yourself and practicing as a life coach.
4. Mentoring. Some life coaches become great mentors. Having people you can go to for answers about your coaching business, industry, or client supervision is an invaluable resource.
(When you sign up for the iNLP Center, you get free mentors for life.)
5. A credential can be security. Although the life coaching industry is not regulated, it may be one day. If and when this happens, credentialed trainers may have the best chance of obtaining a state license.
Life coaching is now a billion-dollar industry that continues to grow. Certification and credentialing are becoming the norm. Common sense suggests that as the training field matures, norms will become laws. Want to be that life coach who ignored the writing on the wall?
6. Added credentials never hurt. At this point, being a certified life coach is enough to give you the skills to practice. Having a credential added to your name (such as an ICF ACC Certified Coach) can only help your professional credibility.
7. The pulse of the industry. Certified trainers are members of a credentialing organization and stay abreast of best practices, the latest research, and industry updates.
8. Integrity. As a coach, clients are trusting you to know what you’re doing. A coach has a lot of power to influence their clients and help them make serious decisions about their lives. This responsibility is nothing to take lightly. Getting a reputable life coach training and working with a coach mentor is ultimately the right thing to do.
9. Personal development. Beyond common sense and smart business practices, if you don’t get life coach training, you’re missing out on possibly the best interpersonal skills ever developed.
When it comes down to it, if you’re going to spend the money to get life coach training, you might as well make it an ICF coaching certification training. Check out the trainer’s training tracks.
