What is life coaching? A clear guide
Life coaching is guiding, facilitating and empowering someone to move from where they are now to where they want to be.
Coaching is often confused with mentoring, advising and therapy. Let’s clear that up, so you can see what coaching really is, whether you might already have the makings of a coach, and what it takes to do this professionally. I’ve coached for over 30 years and hold the ICF’s Master Certified Coach credential, so I’ll share it the way I’ve lived it.
A simple definition
The word coach comes from the 16th century, from the Hungarian town of Kocs, where the horse-drawn coach was made. A coach is simply something that carries you from where you are to where you want to be. By the 1800s the word had become a verb, and today a coach is someone who helps you make that journey in your life or work.
The heart of it is this. A coach does not hand you the answers. A coach helps you find your own best solutions and your own wisdom within.
What life coaching isn’t
A mentor gives you their wisdom, advice and expertise. A therapist works with healing, diagnosis and the past. A coach does neither. A coach partners with you to draw out your own answers, in service of where you want to go.
Many of the coaches we train also mentor and advise, and that is a good thing. Coaching skills make a mentor more effective and more empowering. The line matters most between coaching and therapy, because crossing it can do harm. If you want that line drawn clearly, we’ve written a full guide on coaching versus therapy.
Am I already a life coach?
If people already come to you, listen well and guide others to grow, you may have real natural talent. But being friendly, wise and helpful is not the same as coaching. Coaching skills are specific, and they are learnable.
Think of singing around a campfire compared with earning a living as a musician. The love is the same. The craft is not. Your natural gifts are the raw material. Professional coaching is what you build with them.
Curious where your natural strengths and gaps are? Our free quiz gives you an honest read in about three minutes: do you have what it takes to coach?
What does a life coach actually do?
In a coaching conversation you guide the person, usually your client, to do any or all of the following.
- Set clear goals, whether dreams, aspirations or plain objectives.
- Find their own solutions, rather than being handed your advice.
- Build a real action plan they own.
- Discover insight about their progress and themselves. The ICF calls this the what and the who: what the client wants to achieve, and who they are becoming.
- Grow their own focus, commitment and accountability. We partner, we don’t police.
Because we don’t give advice, a true coach can work with almost anyone who genuinely wants change. Coaching is not for those who don’t. And because the core skills are the same underneath, the coach who trains well can serve life, business, executive and many other kinds of client.
The ICF, and the three levels of skill
The most respected body in the profession is the International Coaching Federation. It benchmarks coaches at three levels of skill, and it accredits the programmes that train them. Since 2022 the ICF accredits providers at Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3, and our programmes have held ICF accreditation since 2012. If you want the whole journey explained plainly, read our guide to the ICF credential journey.
The three coach credentials are ACC, PCC and MCC. We teach at master level from day one, because that is where the real coaching lives.
ACC, Associate
Build trust, agree a clear goal, help the client find their own solutions and action, and hold them accountable to their own journey.
PCC, Professional
All of the above, plus coaching more wholistically, opening creative and intuitive thinking, and holding space for deeper awareness.
MCC, Master
A true partnership, co-created with the client. Coaching so natural there is barely any visible structure, and yet real, tangible change.
In our own programmes, Global Coach (Level 1, ACC) builds your foundation, and Master Coach (Level 2, PCC) takes you to professional and master skill.
Why is life coaching so popular?
Coaching is a multi-billion dollar profession, and it keeps growing. In the United States alone, tens of thousands of people search for a coach every month. I believe it grew because there was a real need. People had tired of systems that let them down, and wanted to take charge of their own growth.
A skilled coach helps people help themselves, in work, relationships, wellbeing, purpose and money. That is real empowerment, and it is why coaching has kept its place as the world has matured around it.
The best way to understand coaching is to try it
Reading about coaching only takes you so far. Our free sample course lets you watch it and feel it, with real tutorials and case studies, no sign-up required.