5 Top Types of Life Coaches
It's not a universal gig. Sure, you might possess the passion (and knowledge) to help people transform their lives, but here's the thing for you to make a real impact and to build a thriving business -- it's important to identify your niche. That's where your skills, passion and the ideal target market meet.
In this article, we're exploring five different life coaching niches you can investigate, and revealing what it takes to shine within each. In addition, we'll provide suggestions for starting your coaching business with a plethora of tools , so you can make your love for coaching into a thriving business.
Skip ahead:
- Who is a life coach?
- What does an individual Life coach's job?
- Does a life coach also a therapist?
- The top life coach niches that you need to know
- Create your own life coaching business on
Who is a life trainer?
A life coach is a trained professional that helps individuals identify and overcome challenges within specific areas of their lives.
Just like a sports coach assists athletes to sharpen their abilities and achieve clearly established goals, a personal coach can help individuals build on their abilities, face personal challenges, and work towards specific career or life objectives. That is, your task is to offer guidance, support, and accountability for clients to navigate obstacles, stay focused, and create a path towards a happier and successful life.
What is a life coach do?
As a life coach your primary responsibility is to assist people in taking steps to make their lives better. This is accomplished by:
- Helping clients clarify their goals and establish realistic targets that can be achieved
- Making action plans to help them achieve set goals
- Monitoring developments and holding clients accountable
- Giving constructive feedback to help clients stay on course
- Celebrating successes and reframing failures as opportunities to learn
Also, is a life coach a psychotherapist?
A life coach is not a psychotherapist. A life coach helps you set and work toward clear goals to improve the quality of your life. A therapist, on the other hand, focuses on the emotional wellbeing of youhelp you deal with past trauma and understand the effects of your past experience in your mental and emotional growth.
Let's explore these distinctions deeper.
| Life coach vs. Therapist What is the difference? | ||
| Life Coach | Therapist | |
| Focus | Future goals, personal development, self-improvement | Mental well-being, healing traumas from the past |
| Emotional well-being | Goal-setting, motivation and goal-setting pragmatic strategies | diagnosing and treating mental health issues and emotional support |
| Certificates of training and certification | There is no specific license necessary; certification is optional. | Requires formal education (Master's/Doctorate) and a valid license |
| Professional Standards and Legal Laws | Often not regulated; the rules vary by company and the certification | Required by the law, ethical standards, and licensing boards |
| Techniques Used | Goal-setting, visualization, accountability, motivation | Cognitive-behavioral therapy, speech therapy, evidence-based techniques |
| Outcome | Achieving personal/professional goals, greater life satisfaction | Improved mental health, mental stability, coping abilities |
To illustrate further, here are example scenarios where it makes sense for someone to seek assistance by a coach for life instead of the therapist.
How often should you see a life coach
You've had the same job for a few years and feel stuck in your career. You know you want to progress, but require help in figuring out the best way to get there. You're generally in good mental well-being, but you need clarity in how to set goals for your career, improving your leadership abilities, and making a plan of action for career growth.
You might seek a life coach to help you identify your strengths, set concrete goals, hold your accountable and motivate you in your pursuit of career ambitions.
What is the best time to visit an therapy
There's an anxiety problem that impacts your life daily and your relationships. You find it hard to focus, you feel overwhelmed, and sometimes are unable to determine the reason for your stress. Additionally, you have a history of trauma you think influences your present emotions and behavior.
If you are in this situation, a therapist would be an ideal choice. They are able to help you identify the underlying causes behind your anxiety. They can also provide you with a safe space to process your past experience and suggest treatment techniques like cognitive-behavioral therapy to manage symptoms and improve the quality of your life.
The top life coach niches you should know.
Once you've mastered the basic concepts of coaching life, let's explore the various specializations to help you find the right fit.
Career coach
As a career coach, your job is to help people navigate their career paths by providing guidance, support as well as practical guidance in order to reach your professional objectives.
The majority of people employ career coaches because they provide claritythis is because they're unsure about how to get further. In some instances, the person already has an idea of what they want and requires an accountable partner.
Other responsibilities of the career coach are:
- Offering guidance in negotiating salary, requesting for promotions and moving into higher positions
- Making career plans and helping to guide the implementation
- Functioning as a sonic board for professional choices
How do you be an expert career coach
It is necessary to have relevant experience in your profession at least in the field you want to offer coaching services. If, for instance, you plan to mentor creators, it is essential that you have made a name for yourself as an accomplished creator. This way, you'll be able to offer advice that is based on actual experiences, not just theories scraped off the Internet.
In addition, consider enrolling in courses and getting certifications for career coaching. As an example that the International Association of Career Coaches offers multiple certification programs with flexibility in the setup and timeframes.
Being certified can increase your credibility and demonstrate your skills which makes it much easier for customers to be confident in your company.
The health and wellness coach
A wellness and health coach helps people develop healthier habits that improve their health and well-being. You'll work with clients to create realistic goals that are individualized and achievable and assist them in achieving these goals without pushing themselves too hard.
Wellness and health is an extremely broad field, so you need to narrow it down further. For example, you can be a fitness instructor, helping people meet their weight and movement goals or a nutritionist who aids them to eat healthy, or an accountable partner that helps people overcome issues or chronic illnesses.
Health professionals do not diagnose illness or prescribe medication. If you notice symptoms of illness in a person, the appropriate thing to do is refer them to a professional for help. It is not advisable to take on the role of a medical practitioner, or it may have a wide-ranging effects.
How to be a wellness and health coach
Health and wellness is very complicated and delicate, which is why you require formal training as well as certification to become an instructor.
There are a variety of programs you can enroll in such as:
- The National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching accreditations
- National Society of Health Coaches certification
- It is the Emory University Health and Wellness Coaching Certificate
Relationship coach
One of the first things that is thought of when people encounter a relationships coaches is "they'll help me fix my love life." This is an accurate statement, giving advice on romantic relationships is only one aspect of the work.
A relationship coach you're able to help clients create healthy relationships across all areas of their lives, such as platonic, romantic, and workplace interactions. You can also niche down to one specific aspect -- such as helping people to navigate their adult relationships or establish the boundaries for their parents instead of over-pleasing them.
How do you be an expert in relationship coaching
Being a relationship trainer, you are the source of inspiration for your clients, so you must practice what you preach. If you are planning to help people to build solid relationships in their relationship, you should ideally possess a model to use during your practice.
It also helps to have a before-and-after story. This means you can point at times when you've been in a similar situation as the customer, what you did to escape it, and what you're living now. This sort of proof could be extremely inspiring to your customers.
If you want to be more credible, think about getting a certification from the Relationship Coaching Institute.
Coaching for finance
Financial coaches help people develop a positive relationship with money, by helping their financial behavior to improve. The primary focus of your work is helping clients to establish and reach easy, attainable budgets while dealing with issues that arise from poor budgeting or excessive spending.
Unlike financial advisors, that focus on making investments work and developing wealth, financial advisors focus on the basic aspects of financial management. For example, you might suggest resources that can help your clients get started with investing, but you will not oversee their portfolios, or manage their investments. Your job is to provide customers with the education and behaviors they'll need to take control of their finances.
How do you become an financial coach
There is no formal requirement for becoming a financial coach (although these are definitely useful). The most important thing is you have a practical knowledge of healthy financial behaviors -- mainly drawing from your own experience.
In this case, for instance, you come up with a budgeting model to help you manage your finances and create solid emergency savings. In this scenario, you could provide advice to those who wish to become more efficient in saving and managing their budgets.
Like we said earlier, becoming accredited as a certified financial counselor can be beneficial. There are several training and certification programs worth investigating:
- Financial Coach Academy
- National Financial Educators Council
- Association of Financial Counselling and Planning Education
Coach spiritual
Spiritual coaches help people discover meaning in their lives. In particular, you'll assist people to discover and strengthen the connection with their own inner selves, purpose as well as their spiritual convictions. The focus is on helping people discover meaning, clarity and alignment in their lives. Often, you'll help them address issues like self-doubt, stress, or a loss of focus.
The majority of spiritual coaches operate with a non-religious and open-minded perspective. However, they may also include specific spiritual or religious methods if it is compatible to the beliefs of the client. Your duties as spiritual coaches include:
- The introduction of practices like breathing exercises, meditation, or journaling, clients can cultivate awareness and reduce anxiety.
- Helping clients explore their own spiritual journey that is rooted in religion, nature and energy work or personal philosophy.
- Helping clients overcome spiritual limitations and their effects.
How to be a Spiritual Coach
Training is a must and getting certified before becoming a spiritual coach. This way, you'll be fully prepared to provide advice for your client's spiritual health.
Start your business of life coaching on .
This makes it easy to launch and sell life coaching programs. It is possible to create a landing page for your platform that lets clients make arrangements to book and be paid for coaching sessions in a short time and then host every event using our online webinar tool. All of this happens on the same platform. So it's easy to handle!
The best thing is that you are able to expand beyond the sale of life coaching services to offer different kinds of digital goods. For example, you can provide memberships, ebooks or courses, which allows you to make more money and diversify your income as a writer. The possibilities are endless with !