How to find a good life coach
Short answer
Coaching is unregulated, so certifications tell you very little and you have to filter yourself. The fastest reliable test is whether a coach will tell you they are not the right person. One who cannot name a situation they refuse to work on is either inexperienced or selling. Use free consultations, take two or three, and ask the six questions below.
Why certifications do not sort this
Coaching certifications are issued by private bodies, not by any government. Some involve real training and supervised hours. Others are a weekend and a payment. None of them grant clinical scope, and none of them are checked by anybody before someone puts up a website.
That is not an argument against trained coaches. It is an argument against using the certificate as your filter, because the certificate does not carry the information you need.
The six questions
- "What do you not work on?" The single most useful question. A good answer is immediate and specific. A vague one, or an implication that they can help with anything, is the end of the interview.
- "When would you tell me to see someone else?" They should have clear triggers: crisis, possible clinical conditions, trauma, medication, anything legal. If they have never thought about it, they have not been doing this long or have not been doing it carefully.
- "Where did your method come from?" Everybody uses frameworks. The question is whether they know which ones are theirs. A coach presenting a standard industry model as a personal invention is telling you how they handle truth generally.
- "What records do you keep and for how long?" Almost nobody asks this and it matters, because coaching has no legal privilege. If your situation could ever touch a court, the answer is important.
- "What happens if this is not working?" Listen for whether there is any mechanism at all for you to say something is not landing, and whether they seem to want to hear it.
- "Can I do one session before committing?" A no here is not automatically disqualifying, but it should be explained by something other than their revenue.
Warning signs
- Using protected words loosely. If an unlicensed coach describes what they do with the vocabulary of a licensed profession, they either do not know the rules or do not care about them.
- Guaranteed outcomes. Nobody honest guarantees a feeling.
- A free call that is a sales call. You will know within four minutes.
- Urgency and expiring discounts on a decision about your inner life.
- Testimonials with stock photography, or reviews with no first name attached.
- Talking more than you do on the consultation call.
What actually predicts a good fit
Two things, and neither is on a credential. First, whether you relax slightly in the first five minutes on the phone. That reaction is information, and it is not the same as liking someone. Second, whether they ask you a question nobody has asked you before. That is the whole skill, and it shows up immediately or not at all.
Where to look
Referrals from someone who actually used the coach beat every directory. After that, coach directories, and a plain search for your specific situation rather than for coaching in general. A coach who has written seriously about your exact problem has probably sat with it before.
Common questions
Do life coaches need a license?
No. Coaching is not a licensed profession in the US. That is why an unlicensed coach must not diagnose, treat, or use protected professional titles, and why you have to do the filtering yourself.
Are coaching certifications worth anything?
Some represent real training and supervised practice, and some are a weekend. None are government issued and none grant clinical scope. Treat a certification as weak positive evidence, not as a filter.
How many coaches should I talk to before choosing?
Two or three free calls is usually enough, and the comparison itself teaches you what you actually want, which most people cannot describe before they have heard a couple of different approaches.
Not sure if this is for you?
The first call is free, it runs about 15 to 20 minutes, and its only job is to work out whether I am the right person. If I am not, I will say so and point you somewhere better.