If you’re questioning whether spiritual life coaching is for you, you should know it is a great way to better the lives of others and as a result the world, however, I see a lot of confusion around what coaching and spiritual coaching is, so let’s tackle some of the biggest questions that I get asked by those seeking to become a spiritual life coach.

What is Life Coaching:

Life coaching is an interactive process where coach and client partner to gain new insights, make changes, release blocks and achieve goals. It is not the role of a coach to offer a “quick-fix” but rather to help the client find the answers for themselves, empowering them to be self-sufficient in moving towards their goals.

What is Spiritual Coaching:

Spiritual coaching is life coaching with a spiritual focus. This means that as a spiritual life coach I am still supporting my clients in uncovering their own insights, finding their own accountability and empowering them to be self-sufficient, with the addition of helping them to connect with their higher power by drawing on their spirituality as a resource.

You might draw upon spiritual tools such as:

• Meditation
• Chanting
• Oracle Cards
• Visualization
• Yoga

The difference between coaching, therapy and counseling:

It’s important to note that coaching is very different from therapy and counseling. 

Life coaching is future-focused as opposed to past-focused. This means that we don’t delve into our clients past areas of trauma but rather what can we do in the present moment based on what we have learned in the past. How can I be today that is going to help me achieve my goals in the future?

Working in the present moment allows us to stand in our point of power and manifest what we really want. 

I’ve decided to be a spiritual life coach- where do I start?

Certification:

There are really two levels of certification. The first being to take a class, receive your certification from that class and call yourself a coach. 

The risk here is that not all classes are going to offer you the best education, you might want to consider:

• Is this class teaching me high-level coaching skills?
• Is this class teaching me how to put the client first in a way that moves them forward?
• Is this class teaching me to avoid codependent relationships with clients?

The second option is to take ICF accredited training. 

The ICF (International Coaching Federation) is a membership organization that advocates for the coaching industry and supports their coaches throughout their professional development. They hold training, professional and ethical standards for their members, meaning members of the ICF have committed to very high ethical and professional standards. 

If you choose to attend an ICF accredited training program, here’s what to expect:

• You’ll learn the ICF core competencies: these are the core coaching skills identified by ICF that they feel makes a successful coach. 
• You’ll learn the ICF ethical code: what it means to be an ethical coach and to practice coaching ethically. 
• Attending an ICF accredited program means that you’ll have an easier time getting ICF accreditation yourself. 

You can go to the ICF website and search for accredited programs that specifically teach Spiritual Coach Training.  

Choosing a Well-Rounded Training Program:

I can only honestly speak on the schools that I have attended, my first school was The Life Purpose Institute, which is where I certified originally in spiritual life coaching. The second school that I attended was Starseed Academy Coach Training where I am now on the faculty.

Life Purpose Institute:

LPI teaches both life coaching and spiritual coaching as two separate programs. It was a solid program that had fantastic teachers and taught me some great coaching skills so yes, I highly recommend them! 

That being said… the program was lacking when it came to marketing and building your practice. The brief training around founding, launching, and growing your coaching business was outdated and the focus on marketing was very “pressure salesy” which didn’t resonate with me or how I personally wanted to run my business.

Starseed Academy Coach Training:

Starseed Academy did a great job of building a well-rounded program that supports you in all areas of growing your practice. The program taught a wide variety of ICF accredited coaching skills, core competencies and ethics just as LPI had, however they were taught at a much deeper level. They teach coaching skills from a perspective of really getting underneath the issue. What deeper root cause is stopping the client from taking action towards their goals?

Starseed Academy is a dedicated spiritual coaching program, so where in LPI it felt as though the spiritual element had been tacked on to a life coaching program, Starseed Academy wove their spiritual coaching throughout the course seamlessly talking on points such as:

• The energy with which you approach your coaching
• How to use your intuition in your coaching
• How do you reconcile the spiritual modalities with the ICF core competencies?

This program also speaks about conscious marketing not just on the surface level of “how do you market/do social media/do you blog?” But really talking about my favorite subject Human Design! Really diving into how best to market according to your design and energy so that you don’t hit a point where the typical “one-size fits all” template no longer works for you. 

I’m a big advocate of Starseed Academy Coach Training and the founder Minerva Maharajh and would highly recommend them if you are ready for your next step in spiritual coaching.

Both LPI and Starseed Academy are ICF accredited which means that upon completing either program, if you have enough hours of professional coaching experience, you can apply for your ICF credential.

Do I need to be ICF Accredited?

Having an ICF credential doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re a better coach. 

There are a number of different paths that you can take into coaching, not all of them align with receiving an ICF credential, however, ICF accredited coaches have committed to upholding the ICF code of ethics and committed to continuing their education. 

Having an ICF credential may open more opportunities for you:

• Some potential clients may seek an ICF accredited coach as a quality stamp of approval.
• If you want to move into teaching, most coaching schools require you to have an ICF credential.
• If you want to coach in a corporate or organizational setting most businesses will seek an ICF credential.

Finding your Coaching Niche:

It’s very difficult to coach EVERYONE and more often than not you end up serving no-one. How do you tune your skills and hone your message in a way that appeals to everybody? You can’t! So it’s important to lean into your gifts and serve those you want to coach, this may take some time and refinement as you grow.

Here are some things to consider when finding your coaching niche:

• People are attracted to you based on your energy, message, and experience – lean into your life story.
• What times in your life were challenging and what support did you need at the time?
• Consider your Human Design, what working methods suit you best and how can you speak to people in a way that aligns with that?

We’re in this process of a great new spiritual awakening as a human race and people need high-level spiritual coaches!

We’re seeing people learning about the benefits of spirituality, changing career paths, pursuing what brings them joy, and coming out of this pandemic people are questioning work. They’re questioning the way the system is structured. They’re questioning why they spend the majority of their life doing something that they hate. Coaches are essential in this time of transition to support people in discovering what they want to do next, who they want to be.

If your calling is to be a spiritual coach you have an amazing, rewarding, and challenging road ahead of you. You’re going to be doing important work to help people transition into this new awakened spiritual age. 

And if you’re feeling called to take high-level spiritual coach training I highly recommend Starseed Academy Coach Training. Take a look at their programs, get a feel for the school and see if it’s the right fit for you: starseedacademycoachtraining.com

The next cohort starts on May 11th!

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