How To Become A Life Coach In South Africa 2021 | Step By Step Guide
Are you looking for a way to become a life coach in South Africa? If yes, then this informative article is for you. You will be given detailed information on how to become a life coach in South Africa.
Who Is A Life Coach?
A life coach is an individual who implements powerful personal development techniques to assist others to create a happy and fulfilling existence. A life coaching expert will help those encountering difficulties in balancing work and personal things, having self-esteem issues, or going through a career change. If you feel that this is something you are interested in, below are seven crucial steps to becoming a successful life coach.
How Do I Succeed As A Life Coach?
Here are 7 vital steps that will help you become successful in this line of work.
1. What Is The Role Of A Life Coach?
First things first, you need to understand what the profession entails. A career as a coaching expert is not the same as that of a mentor, psychologist, therapist, or consultant. Some of these professions delve into the client’s past experiences to determine their present behaviour.
A life coaching professional, however, is interested in the client’s present and future goals. That is, where do they want to be in the future and how can you guide and inspire them towards the correct path based on their goals and preferences, as each individual has a unique personality. It is therefore essential for you to clearly understand what this career is all about successful outcomes.
2. Should I Become A Life Coach?
Now that you understand what coaching people in this aspect entails, next is to perform a self-analysis. Here, you must evaluate whether you are a good fit for a coaching career. To do this, ask yourself if guiding others to achieve their best is something you are passionate about.
Ask yourself if you enjoy communicating with others, if your life has a direction, or if you have a sincere urge to assist others in need. If the answer to all these questions is yes, then I bet you are ready to make it as a life coach practitioner.
3. Find Your Niche
Because this kind of coaching is an extensive field, there are various areas of specialization to choose from, and the best life coaches are specialists. Specializing in a particular field is vital; as it will help you market your services to a definite type of clients and support them with what they need.
Some of the areas you can concentrate on include business, romantic relationships, work-life balance, fitness and wellness, academic issues, career transition and job search, and spirituality among many others. So, identify your niche and become a life coaching specialist in that particular area.
4. What Is Required To Become A Life Coach?
You must get the relevant training and certification. Guiding individuals to progress so that they can find direction in their lives is an immense responsibility. For this reason, you require some specialized training to be effective.
During training, one is educated on the psychological doctrines of coaching, how to effectively conduct a coaching assessment to gauge the customer’s needs, communication skills, as well as ethics in coaching among other basics.
Ashika Soorju is one of the prominent heal your life coaching experts in South Africa known to offer relevant coaching courses. For more inquiries, contact 083 320 1939 or email them at asoorju@healyourlife.co.za.
Additionally, you can also visit Life Coach Training and Certification as they have been training people to become coaches for over 15 years in South Africa. Remember to get more out of a coaching course by finding a training programme that is certified by the International Coach Federation.
Do You Have To Be Certified To Be A Life Coach?
Besides getting the relevant training, it is highly recommended to get a certification. This authorization can be accessed through the International Coach Federation (ICF), as it is the governing body that symbolizes that you meet the international standards of becoming a life coaching practitioner. Please note that this certification is not a necessity to be an expert in this profession, but it goes a long way in increasing your reputability and earning potential.
How To Become A Life Coach Without Certification?
Since we mentioned that it is not necessary to get a life coach certification, how do you become a life coach without certification? There are numerous online programs that one can enroll in to become a coaching professional. Online programs are cheaper than on-campus courses, and they have a shorter completion time. Some online websites and universities could even sometimes offer free courses.
How Long Does It Take To Become A Life Coach?
After attending the relevant life coach courses training, one is given a certificate, and this could take 16 to 100 hours to finish depending on the specified course. A good online program offers life coach courses, class material, case studies, and professional coaching tools.
How Much Does It Cost To Become A Life Coach?
Just like a university degree, becoming a coach will cost you; hence choose your program wisely. On average, this sort of coaching program costs anywhere between $1,500 and $8,000. But, you can search online and find free courses on e-learning websites like Coursera and edx.
5. Setting Up Your Business
Because being a coach is after all a business practice, you need to perform all the requirements needed to own a business. Here are the steps to set up your coaching business:
- Register the business according to your country’s regulation and state whether it is a sole proprietorship, corporation, or LLC.
- Come up with an appropriate coaching business model that will address all the startup costs. If you choose an all-digital business, then the startup costs will not be as much as having a physical location.
- Develop a marketing plan in place to ensure that you will get the clients you need for your business to flourish.
To market your business effectively, you need referrals. To get this, start off by offering free, mini or promotional sessions to people in your network like friends, colleagues, family, and friends of family members.
If they like the service, they will spread the word. If you are an online-based coach, you can put up high content videos for free as it will help individuals to see the real you and connect with you. 6. Create your digital footprint.
6. Create Your Digital Footprint
In this digital era, everything is possible with the internet. As such, do not limit yourself to local coaching but make use of the internet. Online coaching will offer you the chance to reach thousands if not millions of people who want to find a life coach at the touch of a button.
Also, you can coach at the comfort of your house without having to rent an office. This means more rewards for your services. Moreover, online coaching is progressively becoming common as clients find it convenient without having to take time off their busy schedules to travel. To create an online presence, you will need a LinkedIn profile, a Facebook page, Instagram, a website, and a blog that you need to post on regularly.
7. How Much Money Can You Make As A Life Coach?
Lastly, you need to understand how to price your services. What is the average salary of a life coach? The honest truth is that it is hard to place value on assisting people to change their lives, but at the same time, you are running a business, and you have to place value on your services.
To get the amount you need, you will charge your clients, and you must figure out the logistics, whether traveling will be involved, whether you will charge them per hour or per day, whether it is a one-time session or a continuing one. An average life coach’s salary in South Africa ranges between R192, 904 per year, and R483 per hour.
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