Life Coaching Quiz to Check if you have what it takes to be a Life Coach

Do this quick Life Coaching Quiz to see if you have what it takes to become a Life Coach.

“Do I have what it takes to be a life coach?”

This is an important question. How do you know that you have the personality, the temperament, the skills and everything needed to be a professional coach?

Many of my students ask me this question, at the beginning of their journey.

So before you invest in internationally accredited training (which I assume you realize is absolutely critical for you to be able to succeed), here is a short quiz to test what I’ve seen from virtually hundreds of coaches.

The professional Master Coaches that succeed all have 5 common denominators, 5 things that they all share. So I called them the 5 Coach Success Factors.

Whether you want to specialize in life coaching or business coaching or youth coaching, or if you’re not yet sure which market you want to serve, these 5 success factors are still relevant, regardless of the market and type of service being offered.

To determine whether you have what it takes, we simply reverse engineer these success factors to ask questions to establish whether you have what it takes to acquire these success factors. If you have no interest in developing these success factors, I can guarantee that this path is not for you.

This is a life coaching quiz and it is in no way a comprehensive or definitive test, but it does cover what I believe are the most essential qualities that you’ll require at this stage.

Take the quick quiz below to give you an indication of whether this career path suits your personality and life goals.

It’s true that virtually anyone can benefit from coach training because it’s an amazing personal growth experience, but it is also true that not everyone has what it takes to be a top coach.

Take this quick 10 question quiz, to determine if you have what it takes to be a life coach.

The questions are divided into the 5 success factors. Do the quiz and then read more about how to use the 5 success factors, to become a life changing successful coach.

Answer each question, write down your answer (a, b or c) and add up your score.

SUCCESS FACTOR #1:
The desire to make a difference.

1.1

I have a desire to make a difference in my world. I want to change lives in a positive meaningful way.
a) Yes
b) Sometimes
c) No

1.2

I want my life and career to have…
a) Meaning and purpose, through contribution.
b) Success and significance, through winning.
c) Routine and no change.

SUCCESS FACTOR #2:
The desire for independence.

2.1

I would love to have complete autonomy and independence in terms of my career. I prefer to manage my own time and to be responsible for my own success.
a) Yes
b) Maybe
c) No

2.1

With regards to work…
a) I want to carve my own career and financial destiny.
b) I want the safety of part-time work whilst I’m building my own business.
c) I want to work for someone else to feel safe.

SUCCESS FACTOR #3:
The desire for mastery.

3.1

I enjoy learning and improving on new ways to communicate, be heard and to connect to others in a meaningful way.
a) Yes
b) Maybe
c) No

3.2

If I discovered that I had a habit in my style of speaking that was not helpful…
a) I would jump in to learn how to get rid of this habit and replace it with something more effective.
b) I would be reluctant to change and would need real convincing to put in the effort to change the habit.
c) I would refuse to change the habit because people must accept me the way I am.

SUCCESS FACTOR #4:
The desire to help people to help themselves.

4.1

I would love to help people to help themselves, rather than them becoming dependent on me.
a) Yes
b) Maybe
c) No

4.2

I feel happiest when the person that I am supporting/leading…
a) Finds clarity and makes progress towards their dreams.
b) Learns to accept life as it is.
c) Tells me their story and the details of their pain.

SUCCESS FACTOR #5:
The desire to overcome your inner obstacles.

5.1

I recognize that in order to earn the privilege of changing lives, that I need to overcome any inner obstacles that I might have, for example self-doubt, procrastination, fear etc.
a) Yes
b) Maybe
c) No

5.2

When faced with my own inner obstacles that are blocking my own goals I’d love to be able to…
a) Coach myself to overcome my inner obstacles and free my inner wealth.
b) Receive coaching from a professional.
c) Tell my story of pain to others.

ADD UP your scores and read the results below.
For every ‘a’ – give yourself 5 points
For every ‘b’ – give yourself 3 points
For every ‘c’ – give yourself 1 point

TOTAL of 30 to 35

You have real potential to be a Life or Business Coach, and possibly make a really successful career of coaching. You are on track for all 5 success factors.

With your spirit of independence and the desire to make a difference, it’s yours for the taking. If I were you, I’d find the course that best suits you and get the training you need. Naturally, we recommend our ILS Master Coach training course, but even if you don’t train with us, don’t waste your potential.

TOTAL of 26 to 34

You are on track for most of the 5 success factors. You have the potential to be a Life or Business Coach and to either weave coaching into other career forms or to build your own coaching consultancy. It’s best for you to take 1 step at a time.

When you are ready, take the next step to deepen your skills and coaching knowledge with further courses. We’d love to support your training and unfolding if you choose us as your training partner (look at our ILS Coach 101 course as a suggested start).

TOTAL OF 19 to 25

Some of the 5 success factors are missing from your radar. It might be important for you to understand that life coach training is a powerful personal growth journey and a good percentage of our coach students do the courses for the experience rather than to start careers as coaches.

A suggested place for you to start is a short module course like our ILS Apple Tree Empower 101. We recommend that you don’t sign up for any long term training, get into it slowly and let the journey take you naturally to the next step.

TOTAL OF 7 to 16

It seems that you are not on track to achieving the 5 success factors. We could be wrong, but at this stage of your life, learning to be a coach is probably not for you.

You might be better suited for counselling or another more therapy orientated service. Or it may be best to spend time on your own healing and growth.

The 5 Success Factors for Professional Coaches

SUCCESS FACTOR #1: The desire to make a difference.

It’s no good pursuing this path unless you have a genuine desire to make a difference. This doesn’t mean that you want to save the world, but it does mean that you have the desire to contribute to your world — whatever that world is.

So, this is about wanting to make a difference and change the lives of the people that matter to you, and in the places that matter too!

When used well professional coaching is an excellent way to make a significant difference in each conversation that we guide.

To be able to change lives and make a difference you need to be able to do the following.

• Be heard — how well do people really hear and understand you?
• Be trusted — are you able to easily establish confident connections to others?
• Be inspiring — can you easily uplift and inspire others?
• Be motivating — were you able to motivate action and personal accountability?
• Be skilled — InnerLifeSkills coaching teaches you the skills to be able to do all of the above, to be heard, trusted, inspiring and motivating. This way we empower you to empower others — so that you can make a difference in change lives.

SUCCESS FACTOR #2: The desire for independence.

Whether you want to be an intrapreneur or entrepreneur, in other words run your own coaching business or be employed where you use your skills to coach others perhaps as a leader, either way you need a desire for autonomy and independence to succeed.

If you prefer to heavily rely on others, for micromanaging and constant supervision you might struggle in the long run with this path. Successful coaches think independently. This doesn’t mean that they don’t comply with international standards or are influenced by their peers, or seek collaboration — this does mean, that they are comfortable working independently.

You need to use your skills and methods, to coach yourself to stay on track, to carve your own destiny and earn the privilege of the freedom that this path can bring.

SUCCESS FACTOR #3: The desire for mastery.

We don’t know what we don’t know!

If you don’t aim for mastery or desire to coach at master levels of competency, then you might not succeed.

Your desire for mastery will help you to succeed, and to move through the 4 stages of learning.

These are the 4 stages of learning.

1. Unconscious incompetence – when we don’t know that we don’t know. This is the most damaging form of ignorance, literally when we don’t know that we are ignorant.

2. Conscious incompetence – when we know that we don’t know. This is critical but many people aren’t willing to go through the discomfort of realizing, “I really don’t know this” in order to earn their knowledge. To reach mastery, we can’t skip this stage, we have to be patient with ourselves and move through the awkward phase of learning something new.

3. Conscious competence – when we finally know that we know. This is a level of competency that is earned through being willing to admit that we don’t know how to do something, and then putting in the effort to learn and practise until we can be competent.

4. Unconscious Competence – we reach mastery and can now act without needing to think about it — the skill becomes second nature. Competency at master levels is earned. Think about the many things that you do in the day, that you are very proficient at, that don’t require thinking anymore.

(The 4 stages of learning, originated as the four stages of teaching by Martin M. Broadwell. This was developed into a theory of the four stages of learning by Gordon Training international.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence

Don’t settle for anything less than mastery. Don’t settle for anything less than MCC ICF competencies – which are master level coaching competencies.

You can’t skip to unconscious competence. Neither can you skip ACC and PCC levels of competency in order to reach MCC levels. They are progressive. They require persistence and practice.

How long does it take to reach mastery?

According to the International Coach Federation, it takes 2500 hours of practice as a professional coach (as well as other criteria, like for example qualifying in an ACTP course, like ILS Master Coach) to be certified as competent master coach.

Amongst my students, I see coaches reaching PCC professional competency after approximately 6 months of training, and with more than 20-30 hour coaching sessions behind them. I’ve seen dedicated students reach early MCC competency levels, after approximately 10 minutes of training, if they apply themselves and practice their coaching regularly.

InnerLifeSkills has a specific system of training to fast track your journey to mastery, without compromising on any of your skills.

If you don’t have a desire to aim for mastery, then this path is not for you. If you enjoy learning and developing, and love becoming really good at what you do, then this will help you to acquire one of the critical success factors needed.

SUCCESS FACTOR #4: The desire to help people to help themselves.

Most people would love to help people to help themselves, but simply don’t know how to do this. We all know how to give advice, we all know how to help others to some extent, but we might not know how to help people to help themselves.

We might not believe that others can help themselves, “they just want to be able to help themselves.” You are going to need to trust me on this, people do have resources and answers within themselves they just don’t know how to access them.

That’s why I created InnerLifeSkills, to help you to help others to overcome the inner obstacles that are in the way of the inner wealth that is within each and every one of us.

I’ve listened to so many final assessment coaching sessions, where most sessions the client starts with no clarity of their own, they don’t know what to do.

When the coach is skilful and uses their competencies well, they help their clients to help themselves.

It’s the most incredible thing, to hear clients suddenly have an understanding that they didn’t have before and to find solutions from within themselves that they didn’t even know was there.

So many clients at the end of the session will say something like, “It was so wonderful to realize that I had the answers within me all along.”

If you want to make people dependant on you then coaching is not for you. If you really want to empower others, by giving them the gift of finding their own inner wealth, then this will contribute to your success.

SUCCESS FACTOR #5: The desire to overcome your inner obstacles.

Fortunately we don’t have to be perfect human beings in order to be brilliant coaches who change the lives of others. As long as you can coach at master competency levels, you will be able to change lives.

So why do we need to overcome our own inner obstacles? We need to overcome our own inner obstacles to bring our talents and skills as coaches to the world. And we also need to overcome our inner obstacles, to bring our intuition to our services.

Inner obstacles like procrastination, fear and self-doubt sabotage our ability to step into the world. They block our ability to build successful careers.

If you’re sitting at your computer, ready to write an article to promote yourself as a coach, but you’re filled with self-doubt and procrastination, it’s likely that the article either won’t be written, or will be written badly.

Fortunately, InnerLifeSkills Coaches are taught specifically how to coach themselves, as well as others to transform inner obstacles.

If you have no desire to overcome your inner obstacles, either because you are attached to your suffering and pain, which is possible, or because you are blind to your inner obstacles, then you might struggle to succeed.

If you genuinely want to put in the work to transform your inner obstacles, for the sake of making your vision a reality, or because you’re tired of suffering from the inner obstacles, then this desire will help you to succeed because it is a critical success factor.