How To Become a Personal Development Coach

Personal development is personal — it looks different for everyone. While one person hopes to start a successful business, another wants to improve their fitness and self-esteem. 

To accommodate this diversity, each personal development coaches’ work is unique, but they do have something important in common: helping clients achieve their goals. While tactics may change from person to person, this basic objective remains the same.

If you like a challenge and empowering others to reach their full potential, this specialty may be for you. In this article, we’ll explain how to become a personal development coach, the qualities of a good one, and what a “day in the life” looks like. 

What is a personal development coach?

Personal development coaches aid their clients in identifying strengths and areas of improvement, setting goals, overcoming obstacles, and recharting their course as needed. They can help their clients with any aspect of their well-being. 

Here are some of the main categories personal development coaches help with: 

• Professional life: Clients may want to improve productivity, unlock their entrepreneurial creativity, or make career transitions. A coach can help these individuals with task management, networking, and interviewing skills. 
• Relationships: Personal development coaches can help clients have more meaningful interactions with family members, coworkers, and friends by working on boundary setting, communication skills, and self confidence. 
• Health and wellness: Clients may need help implementing goals set by health professionals or changing habits like sleeping more and eating healthier. A coach can create effective strategies for habit creation and hold their clients accountable. 

Who can become a personal development coach?

Anyone can practice the skills necessary to excel in this profession. Here are some of those skills:

1. Practical communication: Personal development coaches are teachers. They may not be subject-matter experts on every client issue, but they’re excellent at walking individuals through planning and defining action items. This also requires assessing a client’s knowledge level about a given topic and preferred communication style and meeting them where they’re at. 
2. Curiosity: Good coaches ask the right questions and pull essential information from their responses to make an effective game plan. Coaches must find a way to balance having deep, honest conversations without being pushy or insensitive.
3. Active listening: Excellent coaches listen carefully, remember essential details, and use an inviting tone of voice and body language to help clients feel comfortable. 
4. Motivational instincts: Clients will get stuck on their paths, and coaches must support them during these moments. Coaches should be able to show clients how far they’ve come and remind them of their strengths. We need to be in our client’s corner every step of the way.

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A day in the life of a personal development coach

Here are some of the ways personal development coaches reach client objectives on any given day:

• Discuss roadblocks: They’ll discuss any problematic situations occurring between sessions and help clients find potential solutions. This way, clients leave a coaching session knowing what to try the next time those issues arise. 
• Highlight accomplishments: Coaches will highlight accomplishments, pinpointing strengths and tasks done right so clients feel encouraged and motivated to take the next step. 
• Make plans: Personal development coaches help clients outline their vision, showing them how to put their words and ideas into action and outline goals, action items, and metrics for success. 
• Facilitate personal growth: These individuals are on their own journey — the coach just acts as a guide. Coaching clients will have to come to discoveries independently, develop self-awareness, and find the strength to push toward their goals. 

How to become a personal development coach

Becoming a personal development coach is a self-guided journey, so you’ll have to carve your own path. Formal education and certification aren’t required, but they’ll help you feel more prepared and make your business more reputable. Here are some recommendations to get you started:

• Get educated: Complete a diploma or degree program in a subject that supports this career, such as business, psychology, or health and wellness. 
• Complete a personal development coaching certification: Even though certification isn’t required, it’ll increase your confidence in your services and affirm clients you have the qualifications necessary to help them. 

These institutions offer coaching certification programs: 

• Quality Mind
• Udemy
• International Coaching Federation (ICF)‍
• Set up your company: Write a business plan outlining your services, prices, and what sets your coaching process apart. Define a strategy for marketing your coaching business, and get to know your target audience through market research. Register your business and begin taking clients, starting small and slowly scaling as you gain hands-on experience. We’ve also designed a basic accounting template for you to simplify expenses and manage business seamlessly. 

Streamline with Practice 

A great way to start your business on the right foot is with a customer relationship management (CRM) system. Practice allows you to communicate with clients, authorize payment, and safely store important documents such as client intake forms and coaching proposal templates — all in one place. Try it today.