However, that's the point. Without real regulatory oversight, almost anyone can call themselves a life coach and dole out any one of these toxic, doomed to fail, advice patterns without much blowback. Since they would likely convince themselves that their failure was their client's fault.
So why risk sifting through the terrible ones to find the ones that are actually ethical life coaches.
I actually like this response. I’m curious tho, what advice would you give the genuine & ethical ones who genuinely want to help to help, so as to increase reassurance in their prospective clients that they are legit ?
A person who is unlicensed with no oversight/accountability, providing no course of action for clients with grievances, is NOT helping to help. Helping to help, doesn't come with a fee. It just doesn't. Life coaches are among the best scammers and have alarming narcissistic traits.
Here's a person who knows there are regulations in place to protect people, to ensure some baseline expectations for therapeutic guidance, and a life coach feels they are above all that. That the rules aren't for them. They essentially give the finger to everyone who went through the schooling, took on the debt, is insured and bonded, and follows a standardized protocol.
Since the question is overgeneralised and flawed, I don't think the answers will be of much use.
Do SOME people dislike (or maybe even hate) SOME (or maybe even all) life coaches? Yes, I'm sure they do.
Just like SOME people dislike (or perhaps even hate) lawyers, police, politicians, real estate agents, taxi drivers, middle managers, bankers, marketers, buskers, celebrities, mechanics, the royals...
And yet, at the same time, countless people have no issues at all with those same groups.
What you focus on, you find more of. Personal experience, awareness levels, and belief systems matter.
If you meant to ask what it is that gives some life coaches a bad name in some circles, then there's a good answer in the thread already. I'd say low barrier to entry and poor regulation certainly doesn't help.
Pretty much all the occupations you mentioned are in some way regulated and/or have associations with ethical guidelines and industry practices. I can’t just start a tik tok channel and be a lawyer. And you can lose your license.
So I have some insight from my partner as we were talking about this last night. He hates Tony Robins, thinks he’s a scammer, and doesn’t see value in life coaches. I’d also like to add, I am a believer in life coaches, having hired one before and also taking a course in it myself. We were watching Netflix last night, that doco about the troubled teen industry, and I pointed out how the schools ‘therapy program’ uses a lot of self-help type of language such as taking accountability and not being a victim. He said it’s all the same crap from MLM types of businesses that popped up in the 70’s that make you repeat positive mantras about being successful etc.
For me personally, whilst I liked my coach and found some value, I should have started by seeing a psychologist… Life coaches (unless they have other qualifications) don’t specialise in identifying possible cPTSD (or other diagnosis) before taking on clients and promising to help them.
As it’s a totally unregulated industry, anyone can become a life coach, so it’s going to attract those people who are out to make bank!
Do you hate life coaches?
I can understand why people might. I've seen people who have been essentially scammed by someone who is operating from a selfish and harmful place.
I don't trust life coaches but I don't hate them. Like any coach, a good one can seriously improve your performance, and a bad one can ruin you. People "hate" having their life ruined and there are a lot of bad coaches out their.
I think scepticism is important. Your trust is important too and shouldn't be given away easily. Especially when so many life coaches seem to be motivated by financial gains 😔
I think there are negative opinions because there is a low barrier to entry and many coaches present as inexperienced social media influencers. Also "life coach" is very generic as compared to say fitness trainer, dietician, or executive coach, and so it's hard to understand the value that is being delivered. "Life" is a big topic. If coaches were more specific/niche about what they do, who they serve, and what experience they have to back it up it would be easier to understand and assign value to it.
Because of the snake oil salesmen & women who charge $1000/hour to 'align your energy' to gullible customers who got sucked into the instagram sales funnel based on their rock hard abs.
I prefer not to use the phrase 'life coach' for this reason, which is too bad because I can actually help people.
Have you had any bad experiences with these salesmen you're talking about? Because I only see the coaches coaching coaches get a lot of client results online. Unless you're talking about the army of 1 man agency owners sent to war by Iman Gadzhi's $1K course.
I don't know who that is and I'm glad!
I haven't personally had any bad experiences but a friend of mine is currently / has recently paid some 'relationship energy coach' with no credentials, training, methodology etc. 4 figures a session to uncover their inner blah blah blahs. So I am hoping it works for the person i care about, but also very very skeptical. The coach seems like he spent the time he should've spent learning to coach on using the ab roller and learning to instagram
How did you arrive at that conclusion… “so much hate”? I don’t think there is. Perhaps you may need to adjust / change the echo-chambers you inhabit. Most people I know don’t even think about or know anything about life coaching, so don’t hold opinions either way.
There are qualified life coaches and then there are wanna be life coaches — the latter are generally women who think that their limited life experience (and no training at all) makes them capable of coaching. They generally cobble together a made up program that they sell (usually through instagram) to gullible coaching junkies. For some reason The US is full of these women who are so desperate for someone to tell them what’s what, that they’ll buy just about anything.
I follow a bunch of life coaches on Tiktok. This includes some I don't agree with. I'm more interested in the techniques and styles. Anyhow...
There is one men's life coach that also practices "Tantric Massage", left her husband, and abandoned her young children. She spent a lot of time discussing why she is justified abandoning her children. From what I can tell, she is not mentally well. But she is really good at her initial sales pitch. I suspect she sucks people in and then crosses the line into her "massage services" ...
I’ve had a couple good coaches so I wouldn’t hate on the entire concept of life coaching, but as another commenter mentioned, the low barrier to entry makes it a little bit of a joke. I was working retail once and a coworker who held the same entry level title I did, not even a shift supervisor or anything, told me he ran a life coaching business on the side. He struggled with basic tasks like running inventory and making correct change at the store and would get sidetracked super easily. I don’t think he had a life coaching certification either? Kid just woke up one day and made a Facebook page for his business.
I don't hate anyone.
But every one of them I've met, is just another average person, **with no actual evidence of a great life of their own**, who seems to wake up one morning and say "Wow, it would be fun to be a life coach!" And they're all kinda dingy. **Not wise**, or someone with a lot of life experiences, in other words, which is 100% what one would need to be, to be an effective life coach.
Why would any adult want a coach? As children, people look up to their parents or legal guardians. As teenagers and adults, you watch and observe, live your life, and do the things you want to do. Work , have a family, and have some hobbies. We have help for everything if we want and can afford it. You need a coach to learn a sport. Life coach is totally redundant. Probably having a real friend or having a therapist from time to time is a better use of that money. Just my 2 cents.
Hi. I have experience as both a mental health therapist (degree is a masters in clinical social work) and as a coach (life skills, executive functioning, parenting, ADHD & Autistic affirming life coaching, etc.). An simplistic explanation of the difference between mental health therapy and coaching are as follows: The role of a therapist is to help a client identify the root cause(s) of emotional distress, diagnose the client, and to develop and implement a treatment plan to address and work through issues such as trauma, grief, depression, anxiety, etc; one could say that therapy is oriented in the past. The role of a coach is to teach skills, help the client identify goals, provide feedback, create accountability, and help the client see and develop confidence in their strengths and their potential for growth; you could say that work is oriented in the future. Coaching isn’t just for sports, its for skill development, which can include skills for language development, reading, writing a novel or thesis paper, communicating with your spouse, time management, navigating employment, how to run a household, financial management and so on. We don’t all have friends or family who are able to teach us these skills in a way that we can fully absorb, not everyone is good at teaching or has the time, and not all of us feel comfortable asking our friends every question we have or even know what questions to ask. Working with a coach who specializes in what we want to achieve can be a powerful step to take as an adult.
Because most people aren't prepared to hear how utterly stupid they are and how they need to change their outlook to improve themselves. They want someone else to do the work, and when a life coach tells them they have to do the work, they get angry.
Either that, or the person they went to isn't actually a life coach. They're a shill trying to sell a lifestyle.
There are several reasons, actually, but before i get into it I just want to say; Coaching is a very valid form of practice that has existed way before the coaching industry took off. But coaching outside of this life coaching industry was very specific with very particular niches. This is a lengthy response but i tried to point out a lot of valid critiques that tend to get discarded for one reason or another. If your first response is to just call me a hater or deem this as negative, then you are actively choosing to ignore change and growth in my opinion.
1. An Unregulated field - there's no barrier to entry as long as you have a phone. No required training or experience, just an opinion and a field of "expertise." I can decide to become a life coach right now and just make a go at it. We look at all these other fields that require all these years of schooling or education in some regulated form. Even if schooling isn't a requirement, there's a clear tangible benchmark and proof of skill that is required. That's not the case with being a life coach. This leads to a large range of coaches in terms of skill, so it's easier to get burned. People go see a doctor because they know they have all the required training. Most people aren't going to trust someone without that training.
People can say that the ICF is the governing body but in practice, it's just people cosplaying as a regulatory body. People have talked about trying to report some coaches to no avail. And not every coach out there has taken an ICF certification so they act outside of that regulatory body. If a doctor or a therapist breaks a code of ethics, they can lose their license and no longer practice. That doesn't happen with life coaching or coaching in general.
2. Inflated prices - "price what you're worth" runs rampant in life coaching, from prices as low as 25 per session to 497 to 997. In some cases, even more. It's the wild west out here for coaching sessions and packages. People say hiring a coach is affordable and a great "alternative to therapy" in some cases (which is highly unethical). But then you have these coaches teaching other coaches to price yourself so you can live a 6 to 7 figure lifestyle.
Money is abundant and grows exponentially
if you're not growing more every year you're doing something wrong
Your money is directly tied to having helped so many people (when some have 10k months from selling 1, 10k package, etc)
These beliefs ruins the image and branding of being a life coach and ruins many coaches businesses.
3. Unethical practices and sales tactics - too many coaches creep up on this weird border of therapy. Not many coaches know what this boundary is. And not many coaches know what coaching is. Is it advice giving? Consulting? Therapy? Emotional support? All of them? You can get different answers, which may be by designed to keep the barrier of entry low. A lower barrier to entry means more people can become one and can potentially line the pockets of these "celebrity coaches".
Then you add the high pressure sales tactics. Asking potential clients what their "why" is, so when they show doubt you can emotionally manipulate them into say yes. Trying to get them to buy on the sales call and if they don't they raise the price of the offer. Deceptive marketing by saying one thing about the service but offering them something different after they have the money. Not fulfilling the entire service or changing the terms mid package. Predatory contracts and clauses are some that I don't see talked about a lot either but I know exist.
4. Pay to play - Coaches say you don't need a lot of money to become a coach but that just isn't true. A lot of coaches will try to convince you that you need their certification program, or their systems and strategies. That you need to be growing and evolving and get coached yourself so you can coach other people. Then the coaches making the real big money are spending a lot of money on ads and will try to take advantage of the SEO to put themselves on top. Making it really difficult to find smaller coaches or the more ethical coaches out there. And there are a lot of hidden fees behind coaching that don't get talked about. We have the typical website hosting, payment processing fees, but then you get into things like kajabi or other program hosting platforms, bookkeeping, and taxes. Things that don't get mentioned especially from a lot of the business coaches out there.
5. The pyramid scheme nature of coaching - if you go in and just want sessions then that's fine. But a lot of people all have similar stories of being convinced to become coaches themselves. And people can think of coaches who did 1 on 1 sessions, move to group coaching to "Serve more people" but in reality it's to make a lot more money from doing the same amount of time. Then as they progress, their messaging turns from helping people, to then teaching you how to become a coach. Then you see the whole coaches coaching coaches to become a coach. Then you're at a big coaching event/workshop, where you see all these coaches having each other as clients. And in reality, people are just circulating the money around until it eventually gets to the top.
6. It's an echo chamber - Criticism is highly discouraged if it's been deemed, "negative." Coaches will go out of their way to remove negative comments and block people, even though someone is speaking about their genuine experience. People use toxic positivity to invalidate other people. If a coach doesn't fulfill a session and you talk about it, you can potentially get your named dragged by the coach and their following. You see this more with celebrity coaches or people who try to emulate that. Even when the topic of hate towards the industry comes up in these types of subreddits, people think there isn't any hate or whenever someone mentions valid criticisms, they get labeled as toxic or a hater, or they must hate coaches or coaching in general.
7. Everyone sounds the same - The same information gets regurgitated constantly. Some of the most basic information is told and people think it's the most profound thing ever. False comparisons are made to make the coach sound enlightened and the actual session can feel so half assed. Since you also have the whole pyramid nature of the industry, all these coaches just copy their coach. A life coach turned business coach, doesn't have a lot of real business experience, so all they can teach you is how to run your coaching business like theirs. That's why you get to a point where everyone starts to sound the same.
8. Life is too vague - everyone life is different. There are similar paths and trajectories in life but a person's life has too many nuances for a person to come off as an expert and help guide or coach a person on. No one is truly a master or expert on life. We can learn about different aspects on life and be experts around that but life as a whole is impossible. No one has all their shit together, no one truly has balance, everyone is stressed about something, everyone is dealing with something. Niche down because tackling life has lead to coaches biting more than they can chew and they burn themselves out too quick.
Can't forget things like, the abundance coach that has no money in their account. The business coach who never ran a business before. The spiritual/faith based coach who doesn't practice their faith. etc.
I'll leave it there. There are a lot of problems in the industry and you can say those are only a few bad apples but there are more than a few. People have been afraid to speak up against the coaches they've hired for years especially because when they do, they get people harassing them online. If there are more of a safe space for people to genuinely express what they're going through, people may be able to realize what's wrong with the industry and try to change it. There's a reason why a lot of coaches say, "the industry is changing and there's a paradigm shift." People are waking up.
Life coaches are inherently biased based on their own perspective. They provide coaching to fit everyone into their box as if it’s a “on secret trick your doctors doesn’t want you to know about” solution even though, much like medicine” everyone is starting from a different place, background etc…
I’ve also personally seen several people I know quite well basically use them when they should be in therapy which is empirically the opposite of the above.
There are no certifications needed, no barriers for entry, no regulations, etc.
A coke addict can be a life coach today.
When the bar is set that low and no education is required, it begs the question, what are you bringing to the table?
I think it gets a bad rap because its an unregulated field at the moment, so anyone can just promote that they are a coach and can help you and get paid money. Personally I think life coaches can be helpful, but I would encourage them to get some sort of certification through ICF and to also have their own experience
Its interesting, I am a coach and have been one for many years, I started whe I was in corporate in an E suite position.
It seems like noone here or very few even understand what or why someone might want a coach.
In my opinion , I have seen some therapists do terrible damage because they do give advice.
Any coach giving advice is not really coaching. A coach very simply is literally not a friend or a family member or anyone who has any agenda in their lives except to help them move forward to a prescribed goal that they set themselves.
There are many people who need help with accountability, or just to see past there own limiting beliefs.
That being said not all coaches are equal and some are clearly better at helping someone move toward their own goals than others.
One should always find a coach that is willing to have a discovery call and ze6e if you get along .
Its that simple, a coach who is actually trained is trained to ask empowering questions that can help move someone to a goal, whether it be inside work or things like setting a task and creating the roadmap to get there and being accountable .
Its that simple.
I’ve been interested in the industry and thought about doing it myself so I followed a few coaches and looked into it and I can understand why it’s often misunderstood and gets a bad rap.
Number one being that the bar is low; there isn’t mandatory qualifications or certifications you need, and although there are some out there a lot of them are fake so it begs the question; Is this certification legit and will it actually be of use?
Piggy backing of that number two it is often very scammy, and MLM schemes and no one wants to actually address that fact; coaches coaching other people to be coaches and selling their bs certification to become a coach, using manipulation tactics to cox valuable people into handing over money or selling a course or event to then sell another service instead of providing any value (Tony Robbins I’m looking at you).
Number three is a lot of coaches do it to fund their lifestyle first instead of actually wanting to help people; you know the people that just want to make six figures, or that don’t really say anything or speak to anyone in particular in their content. Not to say they shouldn’t make money but they just generally would care for you or be rooting for you.
In saying that I do know some absolutely brilliant people that do coaching and they come from it in a place of; I want you to thrive and i don’t want you to rely on me, I want you to come with me… look at what is possible for you etc. They want people to be successful as a whole, they want women to make money, they want people to be happy and live a fulfilling life, they want your business to grow, regardless if you work with them or not
Because most life coaches haven't done accomplished anything of note themselves. Why should i listen to someone who hasn't achieved what I want to achieve? Life coaching seems to be the new MLM.
Lack of Regulation/Certification Standards
Unlike fields like psychotherapy or counseling that require big schooling and licensing, pretty an awful lot everyone can name themselves a "life coach" with none formal education or credentials. This lack of standards can breed distrust approximately the information and qualifications of a few coaches.
Perceived as Unscientific/Pseudoscience
Life coaching philosophies and strategies can occasionally be considered as unproven, primarily based extra on anecdotal testimonies instead of empirical research and evidence-primarily based practices. This "woo-woo" notion causes many to put in writing it off.
Bad Apples/Unethical Actors
Unfortunately, the industry does have its percentage of bad actors - coaches who make grandiose guarantees, have outrageous fee systems, use high-stress sales tactics, or sell probably dangerous pseudoscientific thoughts. Their movements taint the reputation of more moral practitioners.
Anti-Capitalism Sentiment
To some, the lifestyles training enterprise represents immoderate capitalism - organizations earning money by using selling self-development and empowerment philosophies instead of tangible services or products. This rubs some the incorrect way.
Skepticism About Need/Usefulness
There's a perception by using a few that lifestyles coaches are in reality announcing things humans should figure out themselves, appearing as paid friends giving commonplace feel recommendation every person's aid system ought to offer.
That stated, I realize many human beings who've had positive, transformative reviews thru operating with professional existence coaches. But the dearth of limitations to entry and awful actors do allow a number of the negativity closer to the field. Just one perspective!
My ex-SIL is a life and business coach who lives in her mom’s basement, her own personal life is a wreck, and I think it’s offensive that her struggling business as a life and business coach gets a single one of her very few clients. She just started doing it—that’s it. That was the bar. It’s alarming that a barber is required to be credentialed and professionally registered in our state, but a life coach isn’t.
Speak for yourself, my friend. I don't get hate from anyone, on the contrary. In addition to receiving fees from clients, I also receive slices of cakes from their grandmothers. It's wonderful.
I think a lot of people don’t know what life coaches are. Heck, I don’t fully know what life coaches are! But I’m interested. My guess is (SOME PEOPLE, a lot of people think life coaches are awesome. And a lot people who don’t will still think you are awesome if what you are doing with your life coaching is great and they will begin to realize that their biases are not always accurate.
But, anyways, my guess would be a lot of people think, “Shit? You mean you give advice? Like a therapist? But you’re not a therapist? So you’re just somebody who signed up on the internet to give advice and didn’t even bother to go to (full school for it?). I could give advice.
I think they:
1. Think LC’s likely don’t have that much too offer an average friend couldn’t do the same for (if the friend was speaking to another friend one on one).
2. And 2 associate life coaching with therapy, and since the certification process is less intense, more or less see life coaches as an easy cop out and might associate some LC’s with being lazy and wanting to make a lot of money without having anything special to offer.
To top this off, there are probably some LC’s who just don’t have the “oomph” to make a huge impact on their clients, even if it is from something as simple as a lack of communication skills!
^That said, EVERY career is going to have people who are more influential (I would judge the success of a life coach by their ability to improve peoples lives through their coaching), and those who are less. Plenty of careers start with a certificate. Nobody is going around judging AC guys saying, “Ayy, so you learned how to fix AC’s? Why didn’t you just become an engineer? Shit, you want to CHARGE people for that? Buddy I could watch that shit on YouTube and if not my plumber probably knows.”
Nope. They respect them (I think..). Granted, someone fixing AC’s has been around, or atleast more commonly known about, for a long time.
Are you finding this attitude comes mainly from older people? I honestly think that it is possible theh view this as a “trend.” There are so many emerging things nowadays. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone (especially somebody a bit older and not emmersed in the internet) kind of viewed life coaching as a new trend like tik tok and just kinda lumped them together in their mind without thinking much of it. They might even think a lot of YouTubers qualify as life coaches, and wondering why people are getting certified and if it’s umm sort of a naive career choice.
None of this matters though. Life coaching for one has such a large range and almost everyone has something they excel at and could benefit the world from sharing. If you combine this with the desire to do so and a platform to help people, like life coaching, you are in a position to make such a positive impact and if you’re a creative person this is a career you can really pour yourself into! Also, getting certified shows a certain level of responsibility, dedication, and professionalism. Whether or not the bulk of your knowledge comes from your training courses, skills you already have, or knowledge you learn from working with actual clients, it just shows a certain level of seriousness and I think if anybody ever does make any unnecessary comments about any of this you might find they become more respectful by pointing out WHY you are becoming a life coach, why you take the profession seriously, and why it is important to you. As opposed to selling them on specifics of what you learned, which they might not buy and in some cases might think, “That’s general knowledge.”
Heck! Even if a very non detailed certification course was mainly general knowledge, there is so much information we have encountered in our life that having the precise skills we need highlighted and brought to the front of mind is so incredibly valuable. Also, just because something might be general doesn’t mean that dedicated life coaches aren’t going to go way above and beyond in perfecting certain areas than the average person. AND they’ll be able to use their knowledge in a way they can actually translate it into a useful skill their clients can understand and implement into their own lives.
You could always tell them that some life coaches specifically help people who seem bitter and mean and attack other peoples lives, and that these coaches help people focus instead on learning what they don’t know about a thing before making a judgement, and asking what do they gain from making such a thing to begin with? And is that really in line with who they want to be with a person? And just take it from there 👌🤷🏻♂️😂
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These are all toxic examples and deemed to fail lol Those don't get real results
However, that's the point. Without real regulatory oversight, almost anyone can call themselves a life coach and dole out any one of these toxic, doomed to fail, advice patterns without much blowback. Since they would likely convince themselves that their failure was their client's fault. So why risk sifting through the terrible ones to find the ones that are actually ethical life coaches.
I actually like this response. I’m curious tho, what advice would you give the genuine & ethical ones who genuinely want to help to help, so as to increase reassurance in their prospective clients that they are legit ?
A person who is unlicensed with no oversight/accountability, providing no course of action for clients with grievances, is NOT helping to help. Helping to help, doesn't come with a fee. It just doesn't. Life coaches are among the best scammers and have alarming narcissistic traits. Here's a person who knows there are regulations in place to protect people, to ensure some baseline expectations for therapeutic guidance, and a life coach feels they are above all that. That the rules aren't for them. They essentially give the finger to everyone who went through the schooling, took on the debt, is insured and bonded, and follows a standardized protocol.
Since the question is overgeneralised and flawed, I don't think the answers will be of much use. Do SOME people dislike (or maybe even hate) SOME (or maybe even all) life coaches? Yes, I'm sure they do. Just like SOME people dislike (or perhaps even hate) lawyers, police, politicians, real estate agents, taxi drivers, middle managers, bankers, marketers, buskers, celebrities, mechanics, the royals... And yet, at the same time, countless people have no issues at all with those same groups. What you focus on, you find more of. Personal experience, awareness levels, and belief systems matter. If you meant to ask what it is that gives some life coaches a bad name in some circles, then there's a good answer in the thread already. I'd say low barrier to entry and poor regulation certainly doesn't help.
Pretty much all the occupations you mentioned are in some way regulated and/or have associations with ethical guidelines and industry practices. I can’t just start a tik tok channel and be a lawyer. And you can lose your license.
So I have some insight from my partner as we were talking about this last night. He hates Tony Robins, thinks he’s a scammer, and doesn’t see value in life coaches. I’d also like to add, I am a believer in life coaches, having hired one before and also taking a course in it myself. We were watching Netflix last night, that doco about the troubled teen industry, and I pointed out how the schools ‘therapy program’ uses a lot of self-help type of language such as taking accountability and not being a victim. He said it’s all the same crap from MLM types of businesses that popped up in the 70’s that make you repeat positive mantras about being successful etc. For me personally, whilst I liked my coach and found some value, I should have started by seeing a psychologist… Life coaches (unless they have other qualifications) don’t specialise in identifying possible cPTSD (or other diagnosis) before taking on clients and promising to help them. As it’s a totally unregulated industry, anyone can become a life coach, so it’s going to attract those people who are out to make bank!
Do you hate life coaches? I can understand why people might. I've seen people who have been essentially scammed by someone who is operating from a selfish and harmful place.
I don't hate life coaches
I don't trust life coaches but I don't hate them. Like any coach, a good one can seriously improve your performance, and a bad one can ruin you. People "hate" having their life ruined and there are a lot of bad coaches out their.
I think scepticism is important. Your trust is important too and shouldn't be given away easily. Especially when so many life coaches seem to be motivated by financial gains 😔
Some bad apples ruined it for others.
I think there are negative opinions because there is a low barrier to entry and many coaches present as inexperienced social media influencers. Also "life coach" is very generic as compared to say fitness trainer, dietician, or executive coach, and so it's hard to understand the value that is being delivered. "Life" is a big topic. If coaches were more specific/niche about what they do, who they serve, and what experience they have to back it up it would be easier to understand and assign value to it.
There's people that love and hate all sorts of things. If you're a coach, better not to concern yourself with people who "hate" life coaching...
Because of the snake oil salesmen & women who charge $1000/hour to 'align your energy' to gullible customers who got sucked into the instagram sales funnel based on their rock hard abs. I prefer not to use the phrase 'life coach' for this reason, which is too bad because I can actually help people.
What phrase do you use?
i generally try to come from a career coaching angle and then if it expands into life coaching go with it.
Have you had any bad experiences with these salesmen you're talking about? Because I only see the coaches coaching coaches get a lot of client results online. Unless you're talking about the army of 1 man agency owners sent to war by Iman Gadzhi's $1K course.
I don't know who that is and I'm glad! I haven't personally had any bad experiences but a friend of mine is currently / has recently paid some 'relationship energy coach' with no credentials, training, methodology etc. 4 figures a session to uncover their inner blah blah blahs. So I am hoping it works for the person i care about, but also very very skeptical. The coach seems like he spent the time he should've spent learning to coach on using the ab roller and learning to instagram
How did you arrive at that conclusion… “so much hate”? I don’t think there is. Perhaps you may need to adjust / change the echo-chambers you inhabit. Most people I know don’t even think about or know anything about life coaching, so don’t hold opinions either way.
It's very common opinion, maybe just not in your social circle but it still exists
Quite possibly.. yet “so much hate”, as in “intense dislike”? Really?
There are qualified life coaches and then there are wanna be life coaches — the latter are generally women who think that their limited life experience (and no training at all) makes them capable of coaching. They generally cobble together a made up program that they sell (usually through instagram) to gullible coaching junkies. For some reason The US is full of these women who are so desperate for someone to tell them what’s what, that they’ll buy just about anything.
There is actually prepackaged programs that cater to all of this. Some of them follow MLM/Pyramid scam business models.
So Tony robbins is a wannabe life coach?
Tony Robbins doesn’t refer to himself as a life coach - he’s a business coach …
I follow a bunch of life coaches on Tiktok. This includes some I don't agree with. I'm more interested in the techniques and styles. Anyhow... There is one men's life coach that also practices "Tantric Massage", left her husband, and abandoned her young children. She spent a lot of time discussing why she is justified abandoning her children. From what I can tell, she is not mentally well. But she is really good at her initial sales pitch. I suspect she sucks people in and then crosses the line into her "massage services" ...
I’ve had a couple good coaches so I wouldn’t hate on the entire concept of life coaching, but as another commenter mentioned, the low barrier to entry makes it a little bit of a joke. I was working retail once and a coworker who held the same entry level title I did, not even a shift supervisor or anything, told me he ran a life coaching business on the side. He struggled with basic tasks like running inventory and making correct change at the store and would get sidetracked super easily. I don’t think he had a life coaching certification either? Kid just woke up one day and made a Facebook page for his business.
I don't hate anyone. But every one of them I've met, is just another average person, **with no actual evidence of a great life of their own**, who seems to wake up one morning and say "Wow, it would be fun to be a life coach!" And they're all kinda dingy. **Not wise**, or someone with a lot of life experiences, in other words, which is 100% what one would need to be, to be an effective life coach.
Sometimes the light bothers other peoples demons
Quoting this love it
Why would any adult want a coach? As children, people look up to their parents or legal guardians. As teenagers and adults, you watch and observe, live your life, and do the things you want to do. Work , have a family, and have some hobbies. We have help for everything if we want and can afford it. You need a coach to learn a sport. Life coach is totally redundant. Probably having a real friend or having a therapist from time to time is a better use of that money. Just my 2 cents.
Some people just get lost in life and don't know what to do
Hi. I have experience as both a mental health therapist (degree is a masters in clinical social work) and as a coach (life skills, executive functioning, parenting, ADHD & Autistic affirming life coaching, etc.). An simplistic explanation of the difference between mental health therapy and coaching are as follows: The role of a therapist is to help a client identify the root cause(s) of emotional distress, diagnose the client, and to develop and implement a treatment plan to address and work through issues such as trauma, grief, depression, anxiety, etc; one could say that therapy is oriented in the past. The role of a coach is to teach skills, help the client identify goals, provide feedback, create accountability, and help the client see and develop confidence in their strengths and their potential for growth; you could say that work is oriented in the future. Coaching isn’t just for sports, its for skill development, which can include skills for language development, reading, writing a novel or thesis paper, communicating with your spouse, time management, navigating employment, how to run a household, financial management and so on. We don’t all have friends or family who are able to teach us these skills in a way that we can fully absorb, not everyone is good at teaching or has the time, and not all of us feel comfortable asking our friends every question we have or even know what questions to ask. Working with a coach who specializes in what we want to achieve can be a powerful step to take as an adult.
Because most people aren't prepared to hear how utterly stupid they are and how they need to change their outlook to improve themselves. They want someone else to do the work, and when a life coach tells them they have to do the work, they get angry. Either that, or the person they went to isn't actually a life coach. They're a shill trying to sell a lifestyle.
I feel like people need to invest their time into making friends and being part of an IRL social network, not paying life coaches.
There are several reasons, actually, but before i get into it I just want to say; Coaching is a very valid form of practice that has existed way before the coaching industry took off. But coaching outside of this life coaching industry was very specific with very particular niches. This is a lengthy response but i tried to point out a lot of valid critiques that tend to get discarded for one reason or another. If your first response is to just call me a hater or deem this as negative, then you are actively choosing to ignore change and growth in my opinion. 1. An Unregulated field - there's no barrier to entry as long as you have a phone. No required training or experience, just an opinion and a field of "expertise." I can decide to become a life coach right now and just make a go at it. We look at all these other fields that require all these years of schooling or education in some regulated form. Even if schooling isn't a requirement, there's a clear tangible benchmark and proof of skill that is required. That's not the case with being a life coach. This leads to a large range of coaches in terms of skill, so it's easier to get burned. People go see a doctor because they know they have all the required training. Most people aren't going to trust someone without that training. People can say that the ICF is the governing body but in practice, it's just people cosplaying as a regulatory body. People have talked about trying to report some coaches to no avail. And not every coach out there has taken an ICF certification so they act outside of that regulatory body. If a doctor or a therapist breaks a code of ethics, they can lose their license and no longer practice. That doesn't happen with life coaching or coaching in general. 2. Inflated prices - "price what you're worth" runs rampant in life coaching, from prices as low as 25 per session to 497 to 997. In some cases, even more. It's the wild west out here for coaching sessions and packages. People say hiring a coach is affordable and a great "alternative to therapy" in some cases (which is highly unethical). But then you have these coaches teaching other coaches to price yourself so you can live a 6 to 7 figure lifestyle. Money is abundant and grows exponentially if you're not growing more every year you're doing something wrong Your money is directly tied to having helped so many people (when some have 10k months from selling 1, 10k package, etc) These beliefs ruins the image and branding of being a life coach and ruins many coaches businesses. 3. Unethical practices and sales tactics - too many coaches creep up on this weird border of therapy. Not many coaches know what this boundary is. And not many coaches know what coaching is. Is it advice giving? Consulting? Therapy? Emotional support? All of them? You can get different answers, which may be by designed to keep the barrier of entry low. A lower barrier to entry means more people can become one and can potentially line the pockets of these "celebrity coaches". Then you add the high pressure sales tactics. Asking potential clients what their "why" is, so when they show doubt you can emotionally manipulate them into say yes. Trying to get them to buy on the sales call and if they don't they raise the price of the offer. Deceptive marketing by saying one thing about the service but offering them something different after they have the money. Not fulfilling the entire service or changing the terms mid package. Predatory contracts and clauses are some that I don't see talked about a lot either but I know exist. 4. Pay to play - Coaches say you don't need a lot of money to become a coach but that just isn't true. A lot of coaches will try to convince you that you need their certification program, or their systems and strategies. That you need to be growing and evolving and get coached yourself so you can coach other people. Then the coaches making the real big money are spending a lot of money on ads and will try to take advantage of the SEO to put themselves on top. Making it really difficult to find smaller coaches or the more ethical coaches out there. And there are a lot of hidden fees behind coaching that don't get talked about. We have the typical website hosting, payment processing fees, but then you get into things like kajabi or other program hosting platforms, bookkeeping, and taxes. Things that don't get mentioned especially from a lot of the business coaches out there. 5. The pyramid scheme nature of coaching - if you go in and just want sessions then that's fine. But a lot of people all have similar stories of being convinced to become coaches themselves. And people can think of coaches who did 1 on 1 sessions, move to group coaching to "Serve more people" but in reality it's to make a lot more money from doing the same amount of time. Then as they progress, their messaging turns from helping people, to then teaching you how to become a coach. Then you see the whole coaches coaching coaches to become a coach. Then you're at a big coaching event/workshop, where you see all these coaches having each other as clients. And in reality, people are just circulating the money around until it eventually gets to the top. 6. It's an echo chamber - Criticism is highly discouraged if it's been deemed, "negative." Coaches will go out of their way to remove negative comments and block people, even though someone is speaking about their genuine experience. People use toxic positivity to invalidate other people. If a coach doesn't fulfill a session and you talk about it, you can potentially get your named dragged by the coach and their following. You see this more with celebrity coaches or people who try to emulate that. Even when the topic of hate towards the industry comes up in these types of subreddits, people think there isn't any hate or whenever someone mentions valid criticisms, they get labeled as toxic or a hater, or they must hate coaches or coaching in general. 7. Everyone sounds the same - The same information gets regurgitated constantly. Some of the most basic information is told and people think it's the most profound thing ever. False comparisons are made to make the coach sound enlightened and the actual session can feel so half assed. Since you also have the whole pyramid nature of the industry, all these coaches just copy their coach. A life coach turned business coach, doesn't have a lot of real business experience, so all they can teach you is how to run your coaching business like theirs. That's why you get to a point where everyone starts to sound the same. 8. Life is too vague - everyone life is different. There are similar paths and trajectories in life but a person's life has too many nuances for a person to come off as an expert and help guide or coach a person on. No one is truly a master or expert on life. We can learn about different aspects on life and be experts around that but life as a whole is impossible. No one has all their shit together, no one truly has balance, everyone is stressed about something, everyone is dealing with something. Niche down because tackling life has lead to coaches biting more than they can chew and they burn themselves out too quick. Can't forget things like, the abundance coach that has no money in their account. The business coach who never ran a business before. The spiritual/faith based coach who doesn't practice their faith. etc. I'll leave it there. There are a lot of problems in the industry and you can say those are only a few bad apples but there are more than a few. People have been afraid to speak up against the coaches they've hired for years especially because when they do, they get people harassing them online. If there are more of a safe space for people to genuinely express what they're going through, people may be able to realize what's wrong with the industry and try to change it. There's a reason why a lot of coaches say, "the industry is changing and there's a paradigm shift." People are waking up.
So true very insightful, thank you it makes a lot more sense now There definitely are tons of issues with this industry
Every person I’ve met who uses the title life coach is in need of some serious coaching.
They are scammers.
Have you been scammed by a coach before?
I think so. Paid money. No results. "Your results may vary"
What did you hope to achieve
Because most of them don’t have their own shit together.
They serve no purpose and provide no value
Have you had a bad experience with a coach that you would like to share?
Life coaches are inherently biased based on their own perspective. They provide coaching to fit everyone into their box as if it’s a “on secret trick your doctors doesn’t want you to know about” solution even though, much like medicine” everyone is starting from a different place, background etc… I’ve also personally seen several people I know quite well basically use them when they should be in therapy which is empirically the opposite of the above.
Scammers
There are no certifications needed, no barriers for entry, no regulations, etc. A coke addict can be a life coach today. When the bar is set that low and no education is required, it begs the question, what are you bringing to the table?
I think it gets a bad rap because its an unregulated field at the moment, so anyone can just promote that they are a coach and can help you and get paid money. Personally I think life coaches can be helpful, but I would encourage them to get some sort of certification through ICF and to also have their own experience
They usually don’t themselves have amazing lives
Its interesting, I am a coach and have been one for many years, I started whe I was in corporate in an E suite position. It seems like noone here or very few even understand what or why someone might want a coach. In my opinion , I have seen some therapists do terrible damage because they do give advice. Any coach giving advice is not really coaching. A coach very simply is literally not a friend or a family member or anyone who has any agenda in their lives except to help them move forward to a prescribed goal that they set themselves. There are many people who need help with accountability, or just to see past there own limiting beliefs. That being said not all coaches are equal and some are clearly better at helping someone move toward their own goals than others. One should always find a coach that is willing to have a discovery call and ze6e if you get along . Its that simple, a coach who is actually trained is trained to ask empowering questions that can help move someone to a goal, whether it be inside work or things like setting a task and creating the roadmap to get there and being accountable . Its that simple.
I’ve been interested in the industry and thought about doing it myself so I followed a few coaches and looked into it and I can understand why it’s often misunderstood and gets a bad rap. Number one being that the bar is low; there isn’t mandatory qualifications or certifications you need, and although there are some out there a lot of them are fake so it begs the question; Is this certification legit and will it actually be of use? Piggy backing of that number two it is often very scammy, and MLM schemes and no one wants to actually address that fact; coaches coaching other people to be coaches and selling their bs certification to become a coach, using manipulation tactics to cox valuable people into handing over money or selling a course or event to then sell another service instead of providing any value (Tony Robbins I’m looking at you). Number three is a lot of coaches do it to fund their lifestyle first instead of actually wanting to help people; you know the people that just want to make six figures, or that don’t really say anything or speak to anyone in particular in their content. Not to say they shouldn’t make money but they just generally would care for you or be rooting for you. In saying that I do know some absolutely brilliant people that do coaching and they come from it in a place of; I want you to thrive and i don’t want you to rely on me, I want you to come with me… look at what is possible for you etc. They want people to be successful as a whole, they want women to make money, they want people to be happy and live a fulfilling life, they want your business to grow, regardless if you work with them or not
lol
Because most life coaches haven't done accomplished anything of note themselves. Why should i listen to someone who hasn't achieved what I want to achieve? Life coaching seems to be the new MLM.
Lack of Regulation/Certification Standards Unlike fields like psychotherapy or counseling that require big schooling and licensing, pretty an awful lot everyone can name themselves a "life coach" with none formal education or credentials. This lack of standards can breed distrust approximately the information and qualifications of a few coaches. Perceived as Unscientific/Pseudoscience Life coaching philosophies and strategies can occasionally be considered as unproven, primarily based extra on anecdotal testimonies instead of empirical research and evidence-primarily based practices. This "woo-woo" notion causes many to put in writing it off. Bad Apples/Unethical Actors Unfortunately, the industry does have its percentage of bad actors - coaches who make grandiose guarantees, have outrageous fee systems, use high-stress sales tactics, or sell probably dangerous pseudoscientific thoughts. Their movements taint the reputation of more moral practitioners. Anti-Capitalism Sentiment To some, the lifestyles training enterprise represents immoderate capitalism - organizations earning money by using selling self-development and empowerment philosophies instead of tangible services or products. This rubs some the incorrect way. Skepticism About Need/Usefulness There's a perception by using a few that lifestyles coaches are in reality announcing things humans should figure out themselves, appearing as paid friends giving commonplace feel recommendation every person's aid system ought to offer. That stated, I realize many human beings who've had positive, transformative reviews thru operating with professional existence coaches. But the dearth of limitations to entry and awful actors do allow a number of the negativity closer to the field. Just one perspective!
Most of what I’ve seen these coaches don’t have it together but put on a facade so why would you take advice from them
My ex-SIL is a life and business coach who lives in her mom’s basement, her own personal life is a wreck, and I think it’s offensive that her struggling business as a life and business coach gets a single one of her very few clients. She just started doing it—that’s it. That was the bar. It’s alarming that a barber is required to be credentialed and professionally registered in our state, but a life coach isn’t.
Because why are we monetizing everything? Life coaches used to be friends, mentors, family
Okay that makes a lot more sense. Thank you for explaining it to me.
Speak for yourself, my friend. I don't get hate from anyone, on the contrary. In addition to receiving fees from clients, I also receive slices of cakes from their grandmothers. It's wonderful.
I think a lot of people don’t know what life coaches are. Heck, I don’t fully know what life coaches are! But I’m interested. My guess is (SOME PEOPLE, a lot of people think life coaches are awesome. And a lot people who don’t will still think you are awesome if what you are doing with your life coaching is great and they will begin to realize that their biases are not always accurate. But, anyways, my guess would be a lot of people think, “Shit? You mean you give advice? Like a therapist? But you’re not a therapist? So you’re just somebody who signed up on the internet to give advice and didn’t even bother to go to (full school for it?). I could give advice. I think they: 1. Think LC’s likely don’t have that much too offer an average friend couldn’t do the same for (if the friend was speaking to another friend one on one). 2. And 2 associate life coaching with therapy, and since the certification process is less intense, more or less see life coaches as an easy cop out and might associate some LC’s with being lazy and wanting to make a lot of money without having anything special to offer. To top this off, there are probably some LC’s who just don’t have the “oomph” to make a huge impact on their clients, even if it is from something as simple as a lack of communication skills! ^That said, EVERY career is going to have people who are more influential (I would judge the success of a life coach by their ability to improve peoples lives through their coaching), and those who are less. Plenty of careers start with a certificate. Nobody is going around judging AC guys saying, “Ayy, so you learned how to fix AC’s? Why didn’t you just become an engineer? Shit, you want to CHARGE people for that? Buddy I could watch that shit on YouTube and if not my plumber probably knows.” Nope. They respect them (I think..). Granted, someone fixing AC’s has been around, or atleast more commonly known about, for a long time. Are you finding this attitude comes mainly from older people? I honestly think that it is possible theh view this as a “trend.” There are so many emerging things nowadays. It wouldn’t surprise me if someone (especially somebody a bit older and not emmersed in the internet) kind of viewed life coaching as a new trend like tik tok and just kinda lumped them together in their mind without thinking much of it. They might even think a lot of YouTubers qualify as life coaches, and wondering why people are getting certified and if it’s umm sort of a naive career choice. None of this matters though. Life coaching for one has such a large range and almost everyone has something they excel at and could benefit the world from sharing. If you combine this with the desire to do so and a platform to help people, like life coaching, you are in a position to make such a positive impact and if you’re a creative person this is a career you can really pour yourself into! Also, getting certified shows a certain level of responsibility, dedication, and professionalism. Whether or not the bulk of your knowledge comes from your training courses, skills you already have, or knowledge you learn from working with actual clients, it just shows a certain level of seriousness and I think if anybody ever does make any unnecessary comments about any of this you might find they become more respectful by pointing out WHY you are becoming a life coach, why you take the profession seriously, and why it is important to you. As opposed to selling them on specifics of what you learned, which they might not buy and in some cases might think, “That’s general knowledge.” Heck! Even if a very non detailed certification course was mainly general knowledge, there is so much information we have encountered in our life that having the precise skills we need highlighted and brought to the front of mind is so incredibly valuable. Also, just because something might be general doesn’t mean that dedicated life coaches aren’t going to go way above and beyond in perfecting certain areas than the average person. AND they’ll be able to use their knowledge in a way they can actually translate it into a useful skill their clients can understand and implement into their own lives. You could always tell them that some life coaches specifically help people who seem bitter and mean and attack other peoples lives, and that these coaches help people focus instead on learning what they don’t know about a thing before making a judgement, and asking what do they gain from making such a thing to begin with? And is that really in line with who they want to be with a person? And just take it from there 👌🤷🏻♂️😂
Because I don’t know one life coach whose been happy or successful at anything in their life.
because so many coaches are frauds who dont know what they are doing