How to choose a life coach

After I wrote an email to a life coach that my husband referred to me, I decided to meet different life coaches so I could compare their methods. I’ve talk to 6 life coaches and had several free coaching session to try. So let me explain how I choose my life coach.

What is a life coach?

A life coach is professional who will help you to achieve your goals and to create positive changes in your life (in relationships, life balance, time management, careers and so on) by helping you to discover yourself, by uncovering what’s holding you back, by challenging you to think bigger and by taking on real and concrete actions in your life.

Where to look for a life coach ?

Where? what are the criteria? I’ve never done that before and I’ve never heard of that. I asked my friend Google: Life coach Paris or coach de vie Paris. He didn’t find any interesting results.
Coaching/self development blog often advise to pick a coach who is credentialed by ICF International coaching Federation The coaches took a certified coach training and follow ICF core competencies. They have a directory of coaches.

My criteria

Self-development oriented
I’ve read few self developments books. I wanted to experiment and apply the concepts from self-help books. I needed my coach to be aligned with the concepts and ideas in the books. In France, coaches are often NLP practitioners or use transactional analysis. I don’t understand the benefit of those tools. I met a coach who advised me to stop reading self help books because I was over thinking according to her.

Get to know my coach
It was important that I know my coach before I contact them. I visited their blog/website and read through the blog to understand why they came to coaching. It was a way to get to know him/her better, to understand his/her style and see if it could fit me. Choose the life coach who makes you feel comfortable, it’s all about feeling. I am a passionate person. I need someone passionate by coaching, someone who is perfectly professional. I was craving for a passionate coach who truly believes in self-development and in coaching.

Coaching style that would fit me
I prefer a tailor made coaching over the one where you understand the coach is applying a standard method. I experienced in a complimentary coaching session, the coach asked some guided questions that didn’t help me to go deeper in my reflection. The questions he asked were not related to my answers or his questions. After the sessions, he sent me a summary. I was disappointed to see a SWOT analysis. I didn’t want to fit in astructured method. I’m a complex person I think I deserve a bespoke and original approach. I don’t want to be put in a box.

High level consciousness
In my opinion, a life coach must reach a high level of consciousness and wisdom. I want to be inspired by my coach and believe that he’s going to help me achieve my dreams. Even if one of the rules of coaching is that the coach is not supposed to give you advice and mentor the coachee, I need my coach to be able to guide me no matter how big my dreams are.

Holistic approach
I prefer a holistic approach where every aspects of my life can benefit from coaching and not targeting one single goal. I met a coach who told me that she only worked with one clear goal. I didn’t have a clear goal to give her. I knew I was unsatisfied with my career. But I had a feeling that it was impacting other areas of my life like relationship and hobbies for example. I was afraid that if I work with one single goal, a part of the problem would be left out of the coaching.

Coaching niche
I’ve contacted many coaches. Some coaches choose to practice in some specialty. They didn’t suit me because one of them was specialized in expat coaching, another one in youth coaching and one in business coaching. I didn’t realize it at that time but it’s important to be in the right niche.

Criteria were not important to me after all

Price
Coaching is generally quite pricy. It varies between 70 to 150 euros. It really depends on a coach and his experience and niche.

Location
Life coaching sessions are often provided remotely over the phone or Skype. I have experienced face to face coaching and by skype. On skype, the coaching experience has not been less impactful. I’ve been in contact with coaches who were in Paris, Nice, South of France, San Francisco and Singapore.

Language
I thought it was important that I could speak in French to my coach because I wanted to speak fluently about my situation not minding about my vocabulary in english. Finally, my coach lives in Singapore and speaks English. Actually, I am fluent enough in English to communicate my thoughts and ideas freely.

My Life coach

I was extremely lucky to receive life coaching from the talented Celestine Chua, the author of the blog Personal Excellence.
I found her thanks to her amazing self-development blog. She publishes extremely inspiring post about self development, self-awareness, love career, inspiration, dreams etc. I chose her because I had a crush on her posts about passion and life purpose. Her messages were resonating in me. I could feel her passion, her professionalism and her ambition in every post she wrote. Our coaching sessions are amazing. After each session, I feel insightful, motivated and energized. Since the beginning of the coaching, I have invested a lot in my self-development. I’ve made some important breakthroughs thanks to her help. I’m so delighted that I found her and that we can work together towards my goals.

My advice: choose wisely your life coach and enjoy the ride on the highway of change 🙂

Read : The story of my Transformational journey in life coaching