When someone wants to get into life coaching, one of the things that they often ask about is the type of training or certification that is available or required. While there is no regulatory committee that makes sure that life coaches all have a minimum amount of training and passing test scores like there is for doctors and psychiatrists, there are certifications that you can get and training programs that will not only give you some great tools to help you in your practice, but will also impress other coaches and some clients who are familiar with the organization, mentor or training program.
Certification & Training Available
There is a great deal of certification out there for life coaching, but the problem is, most of it isn’t worth the paper that it is printed on. Since there is no regulation or oversight, there have been companies popping up all over with impressive sounding names and professional websites that offer you “professional” training. But you’ll want to stick with certification that actually means something to other people. It doesn’t matter how much you paid for a training program, or how much time you spend learning the principles of it, if other people don’t accept it as valid training, you have wasted your time.
Finding Legitimate Training & Certification
So how do you find legitimate training certification? There are many ways that you can dig out the good ones, but one of the most effective ways is to visit forums where other coaches discuss their practices with each other. They will be able to tell you which training programs they have heard of and which they can recommend. In fact, many of them will have that information already included in their forum signature. There are hundreds of different coaching forums out there so find one that fits your style.
The second method of choose a training program that we’ll discuss here is choosing one based upon the brand name. What does this mean? It means, if Tony Robbins is offering the Tony Robbins Training Certification then having that training certificate will carry a lot of weight because it has Tony Robbins name on it. If you choose a training program that someone who is well-known and well-respected within the coaching and self-help community, you will find that particular certification goes a long way when looking for new clients and hobnobbing with other life coaches.