You may have heard about life coaching and be amongst the majority who don’t know exactly what it is, what benefits it creates and how to differentiate one coach from another. If that is the case then be sure to read this article.

Life coaching helps individuals clearly identify their goals in any part of their life and master their minds to take decisive actions towards them. During life coaching you start to focus on what you have and can do rather than the negative thought patterns that slow you down or stop you reaching your desired goals. The success of life coaching is measured by how you feel and the level of achievement you attain, and it is directly linked to the decisions you make and your commitment and actions.

Most of us, when faced with specific situations like making key decisions or encountering problems, turn to a friend whom we consider to be a wise person. However, our friends may not always have the knowledge and skills to support us in tapping into our talents and empower us towards our goals. This is where life coaching plays a crucial role, helping individuals to see their lives from different perspectives and gain more confidence to move forward.

Anyone can benefit from working with a life coach. This ranges from people who are stuck in a destructive habit can gain a clearer vision of achieving new goals, to those who are currently successful and want to achieve even greater success.

Working with a life coach allows you to define better goals and achieve them faster compared to doing it on your own. Ultimately, you can only measure the success of life coaching by the amount of success you achieve or the amount of pleasure you experience, and you must create the change through the commitment to take intentional action.

Thomas Leonard, an American financial planner, is widely recognized as the first person to develop coaching as a profession in the 1980s, and the history of life coaching essentially begins with him. Leonard observed that his clients, though emotionally healthy and in no need of therapy, required more than just general advice on investing and preserving their assets. They needed help in better organizing their lives, planning, and achieving their goals. As a result of these observations, Leonard’s career shifted, gradually transforming from a financial planner to a full-time creator of techniques that would eventually form the methodology of life coaching. At that time, Leonard called these techniques “life planning.” For several years, Leonard was coaching and training individuals in specific coaching skills; skills that were complementary to and yet distinct from those taught by therapists, counselors, or mentors. In the early 1990s, Leonard established the first formal coaching training program. He also played a key role in founding the International Coaching Federation (ICF). This global federation was the first place where the competencies and ethical principles of the profession were developed, recorded, and published.

While some people may be hesitant about seeking a coach for help with life matters, the increasing number of individuals turning to life coaches is a positive sign, indicating that coaches are clearly serving a valuable purpose.

The success or failure of coaching often depends on choosing the right life coach. Different coaches can assist with various aspects of life, such as starting a new career or addressing personal issues.

A coach can help people organize their priorities and choose their path. In sessions with their coach, individuals agree on strategies to help solve their problems, thus gaining a clearer vision of what they want from life. A life coach effectively acts as a partner in the brainstorming process.

When working with a coach, individuals who are open to new ideas and new ways of doing things, and trust coaching process benefit most from the investment of their time and money. However, life coaching is not a miracle cure for people’s problems, especially if the individual is not willing to address the gap between their current situation and their desired one. Additionally, life coaching is not a solution for individuals with deep-rooted problems such as depression, as these people require specialized help and treatment.

It’s a common saying among coaches, regardless of their niche or specialization, that their coaching sessions often evolve into life coaching after the third session with clients. Any coach that goes through the ICF coaching education to become a certified coach is a life coach. They learn the definition and competencies to be able to make an positive impact on their clients. So every certified coach is a life coach and some would specialize or identify a niche that most brings their interests and experiences to their coaching practice. They are also selecting the market that they most want to work with so that they can market their services more effectively to them.

Life coaching is also life skills that are essential in any profession and that is why many individuals who complete the coaching education do so so that they can make a bigger impact in their profession including becoming better leaders.

The International Coaching Federation (ICF) remains the primary standard for coaching globally, although other associations now also accredit program providers and certify coaches. As the coaching field has gained increasing recognition, numerous graduate programs in coaching are offered at colleges and universities worldwide. Currently, there are hundreds of ICF accredited program providers can be found in the ICF directory and they all must have met the 7 ICF standards for accreditation. ICF has even identified three levels of coaching education to facilitate the development journey of the coaching competencies and they are called Associate at level 1, to Professional at level 2 and Master at level 3.

Coaching is still an unregulated profession across the globe and that is why coaching associations such as ICF have been created to self-regulate and bring much needed standards and clarity to the coaching profession. The downside of an unregulated profession is that anyone can call themselves a coach and they do not need to have completed an education to meet some minimum criteria.

This has brought some confusion to the market and that is why ICF and other associations are investing in educating the market to understand and select the coaches that have been certified by them. They also hold their certified coaches accountable to keep the industry codes of ethics. As organizations and individuals hear about the ICF and other associations, they are demanding their coaches to be educated or certified. In fact the last international survey completed by Price Waterhouse Coopers in 2022 states that over 85% of the clients who use a coach want to be working with a coach that has been certified!

At International Coaching Education, ICE we have selected ICF for our accreditation as we believe they have the most rigorous standards and even ICF refer to themselves as holding the “golden” standards. In 2022, the ICF coaching competencies were updated after a comprehensive re-evaluation using market experts and at the same time an advanced accreditation in team coaching was announced. At ICE, we are committed to partner with ICF to provide the education standards outlined by ICF for levels 1 through to 3 and for team coaching.

Taymour Miri is an ICF master coach and a Gallup certified strengths coach and more recently one of the first 136 coaches world wide to be awarded an Advanced Certificate in Team Coaching. He has 30 years’ experience in leadership roles and 20 years of experince in coaching. Taymour has trained over 1,500 coaches across five continents and is the founder of International Coaching Education (ICE).