Life Coach Courses are springing up everywhere. Correspondence courses, residential courses, assessed and un-assessed. Actually, it's worrying how easy it is to "qualify" these days - it means the public perception of life coaching goes down, because anyone can part with some cash, stick up a sign, and start to take money from "clients".

I hope that, like me, you are here because you're looking to become a top notch life coach. You want to live your life by helping people to live theirs in happier ways, and you want to acquire the very best skills to bring to your clients.

It that's you, then this page will help you to choose your course.

Before your Life Coach Training Starts - Make Sure Coaching is for You!

Choosing your Life Coach Course

OK, down to it. How should you choose your life coach course? I won't recommend one. I trained a long time ago, and I'm not up-to-date, but I'll tell you how I would choose my life coaching training today, knowing what I know.

• Ask Mr Google
  Google works tirelessly to weed out the crud in its search listings, and so a simple search for "life coach course" or "life coach training" will get you a lot of high quality hits. You may even have found this page that way. A website appearing high up in the listings has managed to please Google in a whole raft of ways, so this is a reasonably good indication, but recognise that Google cannot assess their quality as life coach trainers. Still - I would start there.
• A Quality Website
  Look at the websites and see what you think. See if it looks generally credible. It’s good if it’s clear on what it does, how it does it, and how much it charges. It’s good if it showcases its trainers and explains their experience and qualifications to train. It’s good if it includes a members’ area (showing it supports existing clients). Size isn't the main thing, but if it’s large, it probably got that way by not screwing up too badly too often.
• A good reputation.
  These days it’s easy to Google anything, so take each trainer you're considering, and see what the web has to say about them.
• Life Coach Assessments
  This one is a biggie. Practical Coaching Assessments are, in my view, essential. If any training body is prepared to qualify someone without seeing or hearing them coach a real person, then I would not trust that body, nor anyone qualifying through them. How can they possible "pass" someone without it? It's dangerous, and it's deceitful and I disapprove.
  
  The Overall Effort Required to qualify should be substantial – maybe 200 hours, and it should include extensive relevant reading, tested, say, through the writing of marked essays. It should include perhaps 10 hours of coaching practice.
• Accreditation
  Accreditation means that the course is examined and considered worthy by some body whose views we consider trustworthy. In the UK there is no one body that does this, but your trainer should be accredited by at least one of them. At the time of writing, the ODLQC and the ILM offer this kind of accreditation.
• Speak to them
  Phone up the training organisation. If they don't provide a phone number, there's an alarm bell right there. If they do, but can't or wont provide a trainer you can speak to, then there's another. Prepare a set of questions beforehand and assess the quality of their answers.
• Speak to Students
  Speak to some students if you can, to find out what they thought of their training and their treatment more generally.
  If the training body you’re considering passes all of these tests, then I would be inclined to think they’re OK. If you can, pay in installments as the course progresses, and if you become un-satisfied, raise the issues and look for a resolution.
• See Where the Good Coaches Trained
  You can decide who they are - perhaps you subscribe to their newsletters, watch their videos, hear their radio interviews, read their testimonials, etc. Then find out where they trained. You might also be able to book a little of their time for a modest amount to discuss it with them.

When you've completed these steps you'll be much better placed to make your decision. And when you do, pay by credit card which may give you more consumer protection.

Finally, if/when you complete your training, please write to me to tell me about your experiences. This is such an important area that I've decided to make a web area where coaches can help would-be trainees to select the best couch training course for them.

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