Personal Coaching – The Ultimate Guide (2024)

You’re about to learn how personal coaching helps you meet your goals, how to find the best personal coach and a lot more.

As a certified professional with years of life coaching experience, I am excited to share how coaches can help people create a new success-filled life for themselves.  

So, let’s dive in! 

Personal Coaching
Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash

What Is Personal Coaching?

When you invest in personal coaching, you’ll work one-on-one with a coach to improve your personal development.

This form of coaching can take place face-to-face or online, depending on your preference.

Ultimately, the personal coaching experience can become whatever you want it to be. As the person paying for coaching, you have the power to choose what to focus on. 

Whatever you choose, your coach will have the knowledge and experience to support you. 

On top of that, they also have the skills to transform your mindset, shake you out of a rut and inspire you into action.

Who Is Personal Coaching For?

Personal coaching can help anyone who wants to achieve more in any area of their life.

If you’re struggling to meet your personal or professional goals, a coach can help propel you towards them. 

If you’re overwhelmed with stress or unable to develop a winning mindset, your coach may be able to inspire a transformation. 

If you’re feeling lost, your coach will help you set an appropriate goal. If you’re constantly unmotivated, they’ll serve as an awesome accountability-buddy. 

Please note that most successful individuals – whether they’re business owners, athletes, entertainers or high-rollers in some other field – choose to work with a coach in some capacity. 

So, don’t get it twisted. Personal coaching isn’t for deadbeats. It’s for ambitious individuals ready to take action towards living their best possible life.  

Types Of Personal Coaching

Personal coaching is a broad term, which describes a huge industry. Indeed, many coaches choose to develop skills in a specific niche of coaching. 

Some popular niches include: 

I’ve listed more types of coaching here. 

If you’re only looking for support in one aspect of your life, it may make sense to seek out a coach who brands themselves as an expert in this field.

But if you’re looking to achieve more success in several areas, it’s better to find a ‘personal coach’ or a ‘life coach’. 

Personal Coaching vs Life Coaching

The role of a life coach is essentially the same as a personal coach. The job title they choose will depend on their personal branding. 

What Does A Personal Coach Do?   

The first step in the life coaching process involves the coach learning their client’s desires, values and personal goals. 

This can take time, as it isn’t always as simple as asking what they want. Often, the client will either be unsure or unable to reveal the truth about their ambitions. 

Thankfully, coaches are trained how to ask questions in a way that allows clients to understand what they really want to achieve in life. 

Indeed, clients tend to learn more about themselves than ever before when working with a personal coach. They’ll explore their success mindset, their perceived roadblocks and alternative paths to meeting their goals. It’s a priceless learning experience for many people. 

Many times, people will choose to hire a coach who has already achieved great success in their field. In this case, the coach may be able to offer advice based on their own experience. 

However, most personal coaching will involve the coach asking questions that help the client lead themselves to the correct answers. From there, they can then set themselves short-term and long-term goals specific to their needs. 

In future sessions, the coach will hold the client accountable to these goals, help them measure their progress and assist with the setting of new goals.

This cycle can potentially last forever. For an ambitious client, there will always be another goal to achieve, more action to take, another deadline to meet.     

How To Find The Best Personal Coach

I would recommend you work with a professional coach that has been accredited by the International Coach Federation.

This professional body is widely recognised as the most stringent when it comes to offering accreditations. As such, you can guarantee that an ICF-accredited coach has received the training to get you performing at your optimum level.

If there’s a particular aspect of your life where you’d like better results, it could make sense to seek a coach who specialises in that area. These individuals will have received the same training as general life coaches, so they’ll be far from inept if asked for advice outside their niche. 

That’s not to say that all-round coaches are useless though. Far from it. 

After their credentials, the next most important factor to consider is how well you get on with your coach. If you have a good rapport, you’ll get a lot more from your learning experience. Without it, you may remain unmotivated to take action. 

Most personal coaches will offer a free starter session, designed to see if you gel well. In this session, you’ll be prompted to describe what you’re looking for from a coach. They’ll then explain how they can help you achieve such results. 

Use this call as an opportunity to address any queries you have about their coaching – and to see if there’s chemistry between the two of you.

Alternatives To Personal Coaching

If you’re suffering from serious mental health problems, it may be more suitable to work with a therapist or a psychiatrist. A certified life coach will know when to refer you to one of these professionals, and will not hesitate to do so.

If you can’t afford traditional one-on-one personal coaching, you may want to consider group coaching, as this tends to be cheaper.

Therapy apps – including Betterhelp or Talkspace – are another affordable alternative.  

How Much Does Personal Coaching Cost? 

The life coaching industry is unregulated – and coaches are self-employed. This means they can charge whatever they wish for their services.

Figures gathered by Noomii – the web’s biggest coaching directory – indicate that most coaches charge between $75 and $200 for a one-hour session.

As with any other industry, a more experienced coach will charge more, due to a higher demand for their services.

With many coaches, it’s possible to reduce the hourly cost by purchasing sessions in bulk. 

Does Personal Coaching Really Work?

Humans often gain a sense of pride from feeling like they can do everything without anyone’s  help.

Yes, it is possible for you to meet all your goals without assistance. But the truth is: almost everything in life is way easier to achieve when you work as part of a talented team. 

By investing in personal coaching, you are hiring an experienced and intelligent teammate to assist with your personal happiness. 

Certified coaches receive extensive training when it comes to understanding others’ desires, motivating their clients and changing their mindsets.

It’s no wonder such a high percentage of the world’s most successful people work with personal coaches. 

Any More Questions About Personal Coaching?

Thanks so much for taking the time to look at my guide on working with a personal coach.

I sincerely hope you use it to find the best coach for your needs, so you can make significant progress towards your goals. 

If you would like to ask a question on this specific topic, feel free to leave a comment below. 

I’ll make an effort to answer as many comments as I can.

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About The Author

Bijan Kholghi is a certified life coach with the Milton Erickson Institute Heidelberg (Germany). He helps clients and couples reach breakthroughs in their lives by changing subconscious patterns. His solution-oriented approach is based on Systemic- and Hypnotherapy.

Bijan