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What is a life coach?
A life coach is a professional who helps clients in all areas of their lives to attain greater fulfillment. Life coaches help their clients to identify goals and uncover obstacles that could impact their ability to achieve those goals. Together, life coaches and their clients develop strategies that help clients overcome challenges in their lives to reach their personal and occupational objectives.
What does a life coach do?
While a life coach's responsibilities can vary depending on their setting of employment and area of specialty, some of their primary duties include:
Identifying internal and external obstacles for their clients
Creating strategies that help clients persist toward goals
Teaching clients techniques for regulating their emotions and behaviors
Collaborating with clients to create action plans that address their specific goals
Encouraging sustainable progress
Tracking progress and making adjustments to the achievement plan as needed
What is a business coach?
A business coach is a professional who helps entrepreneurs and small business owners build successful companies, offering them suggestions for growth and helping them set company goals. They often provide guidance by helping them clarify the vision they have for their company and then explore how it aligns with their personal goals. They help people to address specific issues within their businesses and help them identify what's most important to them professionally so they can achieve fulfilment in their careers.
What does a business coach do?
Some of the primary responsibilities for a business coach include:
Developing a business coaching plan for new clients
Evaluating a business to determine its needs
Identifying a business' strengths and weaknesses
Making suggestions for how the business owner can grow the business
Identifying solutions to challenges the business owner may face
Applying their understanding of business strategies and current markets to offer business advice
Differences between a life and a business coach
Here's a look at the primary differences between a life coach and a business coach:
Primary objective
A life coach is someone who focuses on helping clients define a clear vision for their lives and helps them pursue their personal goals. They understand the principles of goal setting and how to use personal development tools. They help their clients clarify their goals, increase their confidence, improve their self-awareness and identify specific strategies and paths they can take to achieve their life goals.
While a business coach may focus on helping clients align their business with their personal goals so they can lead the life they want, their primary focus is on helping them with their business. Business coaches work independently with their clients to improve their strategy and organization, identify their marketing needs and improve their overall performance. In general, life and business coaches perform similar roles in that they both seek to help clients achieve goals, but business coaches apply their practice in a narrower area of specialty.
Skills required
Life and business coaches need to have many of the same traits, including patience and empathy, strong communication, organizational and leadership skills and also well-developed problem-solving abilities. Business coaches must also have strong business acumen. They need to have a basic understanding of all areas of business, from marketing and sales to finance and operations. This can help them evaluate the business and be able to identify areas for improvement and changes.
Training
Life and business coaches don't need a formal degree or certification to qualify for their roles, but having training can benefit professionals in these careers. For example, if you're looking to start a career as a life coach, you can benefit from earning professional certifications in coaching or pursuing a degree in a subject like psychology, business or wellness. Investing in your education can help you gain relevant skills that you can apply in your career.
By comparison, having a degree in business, management, marketing or another related subject, along with business experience, can be a strong asset for business coaches. You can also consider earning certificates in subjects like leadership training so you can help your clients gain the skills they need to be effective business leaders. Since there are many pathways to becoming either a life or business coach, it's important to reflect on what services you want to specialize in providing for your clients so you can gain the necessary skills through your education.
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