What Do Transformational Life Coaches Do?

While it’s easy to understand what athletic coaches do and why they exist, would you be able to say the same about life coaching?

Life coaching is an increasingly popular career option and in high demand. But there are a lot of people who don’t know what transformational life coaching is. 

Some simply have the wrong idea about what they do.

So if you’re looking for clarity and interested in learning more about life coaching, today’s post will help you do three things:

1. Answer the popular question “what do life coaches do?” 
2. Help you clarify your calling.
3. And share 3 ways to get started as a transformational life coach!

What do Transformational Life Coaches Do?

Life coaching can be an amazing, life-giving career. This calling can lead you to help countless others in: 

• Releasing their limiting beliefs.
• Overcoming challenges.
• Discovering their purpose.
• Fulfilling their dreams.
• Experiencing major breakthroughs in all areas of life!

As a result of the remarkable changes they make in their clients’ lives, life coaches often make six-figure incomes. 

In fact, transformational life coaches often make more money and impact than traditional life coaches. Here’s the difference between these two types of coaching:

How Do Transformational Life Coaches Differ from Traditional Life Coaches?

Traditional Life Coaches: Bring their expertise and solutions as the answer to their clients’ situations, circumstances, or conditions. Their coaching process might dig deep into their clients’ minds, but they don’t tap into the subconscious or spiritual side of things. Instead, they stay on surface-level habits and decision-making. 

Transformational Life Coaches: Help clients transform their lives by tapping into their innate wisdom using spiritual principles. (Brave Thinking Institute coaches learn how to do this through evocative coaching techniques.)

In answering “What do life coaches do?”, we’ll work with the transformational life coach definition. Now that we know the type of coaching we’re focusing on, let’s explore how life coaching works.

How Does Transformational Life Coaching Work?

This question has layers to it, so we’ll go over the most common questions about how life coaching works, starting with:

1. How can I help people as a certified life coach?

You’ll learn successful, reliable techniques in a good life coach training program. The Brave Thinking Institute, for instance, trains coaches in a repeatable, proven transformative system of coaching. 

This helps them support their clients beyond overcoming challenges and talking about difficulties. Instead, they help their clients come from a vision and discover what they would love in their lives! This is the core of being a spiritual life coach.

2. What happens in a life coaching session & what are the best transformational life coaching techniques?

There are multiple coaching models you can learn from, but we’ll use evocative coaching as an example. A good way to explain it is by comparing it to its opposite: directive coaching methods.

Directive Coaching: Clients ask their coach “What do you think I should do?” and the coach responds with their expertise and solutions.  

Evocative Coaching: Coaches lead these sessions with the belief that the individual’s highest authority for the life they should be living lies within them. Coaches help clients tap into their inner guidance by asking high-quality questions.

During coaching sessions, there are 3 main evocative coaching strategies used:

1. Provide clients with techniques for being present. By being fully in the present moment, they will be better able to tap into and listen to their inner wisdom. This practice helps your clients take a step back, notice their thoughts, and change thinking patterns that no longer serve them.

2. Assist clients in developing the faculty of their imagination. It’s common for people to think that their circumstances, situations, and conditions determine what happens in life. By teaching them brave thinking, they can positively influence their thinking and use their imagination in more expansive ways.

3. Ask high-quality questions. This is a strategy used in evocative coaching models. Rather than giving clients advice or directives, you lead them to the answers they seek by asking the right questions.

By putting the power in your client’s hands, they will feel in control and confident that they will be able to handle whatever comes their way.

3. Do I have to run my own business as a life coach?

Let’s reframe this FAQ: “Do I get to run my own business?”

Owning a coaching business has many benefits:

• You get to control your own schedule which empowers you to decide the balance between your personal life and professional life.
• You have ultimate control over who to bring on as your life coaching clients.
• You get to design how to run your life coaching session.

If you don’t want to run your own life coaching business, there are established entities (corporate or privately-owned companies) you can work with. 

The choice is yours.

4. Is there a specific coaching format I need to use?

There are hundreds of coaching strategies and methodologies you can use as a coach, but the 3 most common are:

• 1:1 Coaching: This popular format allows you to coach someone online, in-person, over-the-phone, etc., anywhere in the world!

• Group Coaching: The second most popular format where multiple people join a group over the course of a set period of time (twelve weeks, six months, three months, etc.). Usually, everyone meets once a week and the group supports and learns from each other along their coaching journey.  

• Live Events: A live onstage event is an incredible opportunity to work with people in person, speak in front of crowds, and help more people at once. This is also a great transition format for people to go into 1:1 or group coaching.

Many coaches combine multiple formats in order to give their clients the very best possible results!

5. Do life coaches typically work from home or in an office?

One of the great perks of running your own coaching business is the freedom to choose where you want to work! You can work from anywhere with a strong internet connection. So wherever you are in the world – wherever your clients may be – you can run your coaching sessions from anywhere!

Now that you have a better idea of what a life coach does, let’s talk about how clients know when they need life coaching or therapy. 

How Do Clients Know if They Need Life Coaching or Therapy?

A successful life coach doesn’t act as a therapist or counselor.

Although they do build a friendly, caring relationship with their ideal clients, they do not practice “therapy”. As a life coaching practice business owner, you are not expected/required to be a mental health professional.

There are times when therapy is the right answer. 

Traditional psychotherapy often looks like this: 

• Taking time to look backwards in your life.
• Rehearsing parts of your life to discover a phobia or emotional trauma.   

But with transformational life coaching, they’ll listen to what’s working in your life, what you would love to have in your life, and point out the gap between where you are and where you want to be.    

In the next section, we’ll discuss the signs of someone who would benefit from life coaching.

How Clients Benefit from Life Coaching

Now more than ever, people are looking for life coaches to help them change their results in all areas of their life.

The following are a few reasons someone may seek life coaching:

• Silence negative self-talk.
• Overcome the fear of failure that keeps them from reaching their goals.
• Achieve fulfillment in life.
• Increase satisfaction at work.
• Unblock creativity.
• Learn how to become a better partner.
• Identify passion.
• Create a vision for what they would love.
• Encourage self-discovery and growth.
• Foster accountability to increase productivity.
• Create professional and personal growth plans.
• Identify limiting beliefs and blind spots.
• Create healthy habits and release weight.
• Improve relationships and communication skills.
• Foster more powerful connections professionally and personally. 
• Improve business and leadership skills.
• Manage an important life/career/business transition.
• Better work-life balance.
• And more…

These results are reflected in four main quadrants in life:

1. Health and Wellbeing
2. Relationships
3. Vocation (Career)
4. Time & Money Freedom

As a life coach, you would help your clients tap into their inner wisdom and take action to create the results they would love in every area of their life!

Throughout their life coaching journey, your clients will be empowered to:

• Discuss their challenges, hopes, and dreams.
• Be vulnerable. 
• Learn to be comfortable with their own shortcomings.
• Experience acceptance.
• Lean into a growth mindset/expand their lives from where they are. 
• Create a vision for a life they would love.
• Identify/Take baby steps in the direction of their dreams.

And with every breakthrough moment, you’ll grow in your own knowledge of how to help people create the life of their dreams!

Signs That You Would Love Transformational Life Coaching

The short and sweet answer to “What do life coaches do” is this:

They empower people to create and live a life they love.

Life coaching is a journey you take on with your client, where both of you grow from the experience.

That’s also why successful life coaches are students of transformation and live what they teach. Which means if you’re transforming the lives of others, you’re accomplishing the same for yourself!

So if you get excited over the idea of:

• Listening and working with people from all walks of life.
• Sharing your own stories, experiences, and vulnerabilities with others.
• Helping people transform their lives and reach their full potential.
• Building a profitable business that allows you to set your own schedule and work from anywhere in the world.
• Experiencing exponential personal and spiritual growth in every area of life. 
• Making as much money as you want with no cap on your income. 

If you’re inspired by the idea of changing lives, and you love helping people, then transformational life coaching might be the career for you!

If you feel this is your calling, let’s talk about how to take the first step on your coaching journey!

3 Ways to Get Started as a Transformational Life Coach

Transformational life coaching is both a profound calling and a practical career choice. 

But when it comes to choosing a career or changing from one to another, it’s important to make a decision you’ll love!

To make the process easier, I encourage you to take theses 3 steps:

1. Identify your “Why”. Take time to reflect and ask yourself “Why would I love to do this?” Is it the impact? The freedom? The flexibility? In short, tie it to your soul’s purpose and your heart’s desires.

2. Write your life coaching business vision. By writing down your career goals and the results you’d like to achieve, you set a powerful intention. You take a desire from your imagination and give it physical form through the act of writing. This increases your motivation and clears up your professional and personal goals.  

3. Seek mentorship. The fastest, easiest way to get started is by following the path of least resistance. If you follow those who are already living the results you want in your life, you’ll spend less time trying to figure out what works. 

Once you have your “why” and your vision, I invite you to make the third step as easy as possible for you.

Like thousands of others before us, you can begin your life coaching journey by speaking to an expert who can guide you along the way!

I encourage you to talk to one of our program experts and find out how you can make a huge difference in the world, even if you have no coaching experience!

As a result, you’ll answer your calling with confidence and certainty that you will be on the right path, from start to finish.

To your calling,

Mat Boggs