Many people move into the field of life coaching and self development initially to work upon themselves. It's an obvious route to take as we seek to improve the quality of our own life we realize that we are in effect acting as our own Life_ Coach.
Unfortunately, no matter how good we are at coaching ourselves and hitting our own personal self development goals, it is a completely different dynamic when working with a client.
There are a minimum of 3 things you need to be able to do well if you are going to be a great Life Coach, and if you cannot do these things, then maybe a career in personal development is not really for you.
Rapport Building Skills
First and foremost every Life _Coach Professional needs clients, and to gain clients you need to be able to build rapid rapport. It may be that you have as little as a minute or two when a potential client calls to enquire about your services to gain their interest.
If you cannot put them at ease by being friendly and approachable it's unlikely you'll even get to the stage where you can discuss the areas of their personal development they would like help with.
Remember, most professional operate via the phone or Skype and as such have no geographical boundaries to gaining clients. So there are always 1,000 other professionals more than happy to talk to your clients if you can't build rapport.
Listening Skills
Being able to diagnose client issues is almost impossible if you're not a good listener. Listening is not only the most underrated skill of this profession it's one of the most underrated skills of life!
If you are the kind of person that can't wait to offer an opinion before the person talking has even got to the end of their sentence, then Life Coaching is not for you.
Questioning Skills
The heart of great Life Coaching is the ability to ask the right question at the right time. To help people develop you need to ask questions that help them think differently. The highest compliment a Life Coaching client can pay you is to say "I never thought of it like that" That tells you, you have shifted their thinking and the process of self development is under way.
If you can take the time to master the above skills then you are well on your way to becoming a world-class Life Coach.
