I am a Holistic Health and Happiness Coach. It was my dream for a long time to become a coach.

I can’t even describe the happiness I felt when I enrolled in a Holistic Health Coach training program and soon after enrolled in a Transformational Life Coach training program.

I can’t describe the high I felt when I first put out my website, when I had my first coaching call and when my first client enrolled. I can’t tell you how happy I was when I graduated. But to tell you the truth, coaching is so much different than I imagined when I first started dreaming about going on this path.

It is so much better.

But there are certainly things I wish I have known before enrolling in my coach training programs.

1. Simply having a certificate does not create clients.

Getting out there got me clients. I had to get out of my comfort zone a million times and still have to do it to get myself out there. You will have fears, but you will get over them. Putting the word out there on my Facebook that “I am a coach” was one of the most terrifying things ever.

But the world didn’t end. Now I just laugh at myself: “What was the big deal about?” Trying new things, getting out of my comfort zone, testing new ideas, being creative, networking, and being myself are more necessary than an actual certificate. Showing my love, expressing my support and serving are even more important.

2. Coaching is not just coaching.

Coaching is not only about coaching. To be honest, I have to do some (lots) business, marketing and financial stuff.

But I am also doing many-many fun things besides coaching. I personally love writing articles and blog posts, others prefer vlogging or hanging out on Instragram. I have created Facebook community through my online program. I continuously engage with amazing people via social media. I meet and hangout with amazing, like-minded souls, coaches, writers, yoga teachers, healers and so on on a daily basis. I love that my job as a coach is so versatile: between coaching, writing and having conversations, I simply never get bored.

3. It doesn’t stop with health coach training.

So I graduated as a health and life coach (a while ago). Yay! Good for me. But guess what? It didn’t stop there. Even before graduating you was looking at other programs related to coaching, health, self-improvement, nutrition, business and marketing. I wanted to enroll in all of them. (I didn’t.) I continuously want to buy more books and soak in all the free information out there. My book and course wish list is never ending. Remember, learning never stops and coaching school will only open a can of warms.

4. It is not about what I know.

It is about what my client doesn’t know. As a coach, I went through your own healing and transformational journey. At some points I may even thought I knew it all and I wanted to prescribe your magic to all my clients.

But coaching is not about me, coaching is not about us coaches: it is about them, the clients. What worked for me may not work for them. My job is to guide your clients to their inner-truth and their answers. My job is half done when I finally ask a question to my client that truly leaves her/him puzzled and when she/he says ,“I don’t know” and ready to break down. “I don’t know” is something powerful because it forces the brain to find answers. The most powerful transformations happen after the most desperate “I don’t know”s.

5. I don’t have to be perfect.

The web is full of coaching websites. Most of the coaches have amazing, professional photos. They share their own amazing journey of healing, recovery and self-love. They write amazing blogs and articles. Of course, they look happy and vibrant in all their videos. They are perfect. Well…not so much.

They also have lives: they wake up with uncombed hair, they sometimes forget their green juice and life happens to them as well. Many of them are on their own healing journey. None of them are perfect.

I have healed from chronic headaches, chronic hip-pains and other chronic pains. I have healed myself from depression, chronic self-hatred and gotten over trauma from abuse. I am happy and living my dreams. But I am not perfect: I have issues that I am still working on letting go of, problems I am still healing from and new obstacles coming up daily. That’s life, you know. The main difference is that I have learned to accept the obstacles, to approach them with curiosity and love. Now I have tools to deal with challenges. I embrace and love my journey.

6. I need to have coaching skills.

As said, I don’t have to be perfect.

Perfection will not make me to be a good at coaching. Coaching skills will. My job is to coach and nothing else. My job is to provide a safe, nurturing and loving environment to your client. Yes, my job is to love the heck out of them with unconditional love that maybe they have never received. My job is to listen: to listen to them without judgment, with understanding and with true caring. My job is to ask questions that will make them dig deeper.

The answer is within them, I just guide them to find those answers. My job is to believe in them and to support them. My job is to coach, nothing else. By the way, coaching skills are learned through practice not through expensive courses.

7. Not every client is right for me.

Coaching is a beautiful relationship between the coach and the client. Coaching is a process about what me (the coach) and my client can achieve together to allow my client to live the life of his/her dreams. Coaching is a magical energetic connection. It is impossible to connect with every single person at such deep level.

Some clients, I connect with instantly, with some it may take a little bit, but with some I will never connect. It may not be the right connection or may not be the right time. The beautiful thing is that there are so many coaches and clients out there that everyone will find their right match.

8. Coaching is about service.

Yes, it is true that many coaches use traditional marketing and business methods. They may even have a lot of clients. It can work.

But true coaching is about service. True coaching is about coaching and not selling. When I serve, when I coach, when I love and when I support others, clients will find me and will ask me to work with them. Coaching without selling, without expectation and at times without any financial reciprocation is powerful. This December I decided to put the word out there to have as many coaching conversations as possible free of charge and without selling. It has been such a beautiful and empowering experience. I coached people who would’ve never been able to afford coaching otherwise. I also served some who have the money for it. Some actually asked me to work with them and enrolled in my coaching program, while others return the offer with love and gratitude. I urge every coach to focus on coaching, serving and loving rather than numbers and money. It is much more empowering. It is much more beautiful.

9. My clients show me a mirror and will help your personal journey.

Though the coaching sessions are 100 percent about my client and not about my own agenda, they can be extremely healing and empowering to me as well. The law of attraction is no joke and I always meet the right clients for me. Clients come in with problems that I might have struggled with, issues that are resurfacing in my life again and topics that are currently bothering me.

Sometimes they down-right mirror my exact life. Clients not only show me a mirror, but they teach me as well. Their stories will inspire and motivate me. It was not once that I ended up giving myself the same homework as I did to a client or experienced a powerful “aha” moment thanks to a coaching conversation.

10. The high I experience after a coaching session.

Coaching is beautiful. Coaching is powerful.

Coaching sessions can, but usually do not start with deep sharing. They may start with “I don’t know”-s or surface stuff. But as I am guiding my client to dig deeper, she/he will reach a peak, there will be an “aha” moment, there will answers, there will be next steps, there will be some empowering amazing magic going on. That is beautiful. I can’t even describe this feeling, but I leave my sessions with a beautiful “high” full of gratitude and happiness.

I truly love my clients, grateful for them allowing me into their deepest truth and so proud of their journey.

Love elephant and want to go steady?

Sign up for our (curated) daily and weekly newsletters!

Author: Kat Gal 

Editor: Renée Picard

Photo: Texas A&M University-Com at Flickr