How to Find a Life Coach Online to Empower & Uplift You
Life coaching is about having someone in your corner to guide you to personal and professional growth as you carve a path to your vision for how you’d like to live in a particular area of your life. It’s a true belief that no one should ever remain stuck or stagnant, and you have an innate potential to achieve more of what lights your soul on fire.
Sure, life coaching can get to be a confusing online space filled with monthly packages, programs, courses, and approaches that can promise a quick fix or magic wand. We have totally been there before, hitting Google to search for support just to find all the ways your life can be fixed with one click, leaving you unsure if it’s what you need or what people think you should do. Don’t worry; this blog is not here to explain how your life can change overnight, but instead to help you explore how to find a life coach who sees you fully and helps you live an intentional and aligned life in the ways you desire.
What is a Life Coach?
A life coach is a trained and certified professional who offers space to create the experience you’re looking for by guiding you to ways to pour energy into the areas of life that mean the most to you. Think of someone highly skilled in helping you create the life you want in a way that works for you, with a strong sense of how to honor your unique goals, intentions, and lifestyle. Working alongside a coach is your time to step out of the hustle and bustle for a moment and deeply exhale into a new perspective.
Working with a coach is a very personal process that involves sharing your desired outcome or asking for guidance to create your intentional life vision with clarity about how to get there using the potential you already have within you. While coaching and therapy differ in several ways, they both share an invitation and opportunity to be vulnerable in a safe space. Thus, it’s incredibly important to find the right coach who will mirror your strengths and hold gentle accountability that can keep you going in the direction of your dreams without an ounce of judgment. Tune into how you feel inside and who you have a strong connection with, y’all!
Benefits of working with a life coach
Let me say it again, it’s all about the relationship y’all. Of course you want to be meeting coaches that know what the heck they are talking about and have completed training from reputable organizations. You also want to find someone that aligns with the breakthroughs you’re trying to see in a style that motivates and empowers you.
When you find a life coach you connect with, you can see changes in life with new ways of seeing the world that feel most in sync with your values, beliefs, strengths, and inner confidence. Our coaches at Modern Therapy also work with trained therapists and psychologists to regularly expand their coaching capacity to offer the highest quality of care and honor your whole person.
Here are a few areas you may work with a life coach on:
Creating short-term and long-term goals
Introducing better boundaries, stress management, and self-care
Living in alignment with core values and inner sense of purpose
Uncovering inner confidence and working through obstacles
Strengthening relationships with self and others
Navigating a transition or big change like a new career
Putting yourself first, even and especially with a hectic schedule
Claiming what you want and going after it
Life coaching has a reputation of being for individuals, but that’s not the only thing. We do have a special place for couples because hey sometimes it just makes the most sense to design the life you want along with the person you want to share that life with. So, say hi to life coaching (couples edition) at Modern Therapy.
Learn more about couples coaching opportunities to maintain strong relationship foundations and create a future you both can’t wait to live.
How life coaching and therapy work together
Getting real here; we live in a world where we now have a bazillion options all the time for just about everything and an overwhelming number of coaches who are trying to push knowledge. All we want is for something that truly helps and you may feel confused about which route you should pursue.. We hear about this all the time and honestly, we’ll be the first to say that pushy coaches and sales pitches give us the ick. Ultimately, you are in the driver’s seat and the best way to find a good life coach is to let your values and gut intuition lead you.
You might be wondering if you should find a life coach while in therapy, or how the work you do in life coaching is different from therapy and if you have to choose between the two support systems. Although the roles of a coach and a therapist may be different, many people find value in working with both simultaneously.
Working with a coach and a therapist either at the same time or at different moments in your journey can surround you with support and a strong team in your corner. Coaches and therapists come to the table with unique strengths to offer, with the same overarching goal to honor wherever you’re at, and leave you feeling so seen and empowered after each and every session.
Coaching focuses on more structured sessions to clarify action steps that will move you toward your specific goals in a niche area of life, health, knowing your own body, or career. It thrives on goal-setting, resource sharing, and guidance in areas such as homework or experiments to try between sessions. In a coaching session, you’re learning how to hold yourself accountable for what you want most.
Therapy focuses on deeper foundational work and is a space dedicated to gaining insight through self-exploration and becoming equipped with evidence-based skills, as you learn more about yourself and what shaped you. As you do this work, it will enable you to bring a more understood and ready version of yourself to coaching sessions tailored to specific pieces of your overall story nurtured in your therapy sessions. In therapy you are rolling your sleeves up and getting into the ‘let me understand who I am and why’ work.
Here are a few ways that people welcome in life coaching and therapy:
Sometimes people begin their personal transformational journey with a coach and add in a therapist to get a sense of things happening internally, working with both simultaneously
Sometimes, people begin their personal development journey in therapy and add a coach to work in a particular area of their life
Sometimes, people begin their personal development journey in therapy, then decide to end their therapeutic journey and begin their coaching journey
Understanding the Role of a Life Coach
Imagine moving through life knowing you always have someone in your corner, who cares deeply about who you want to be as a person and the goals you hold close, and can always remind you of just how worthy you are of anything you want in this life. That’s the impact of a life coach you can trust and rely on to lift you up when you need it most and guide you to your own answers and inner sense of what feels right for you.
A coach is someone who holds themself to a certain standard to make sure your shared space is exactly what you need it to be. They bring intentionality and a transformation mindset to help you maintain momentum in the direction you’re most interested in exploring.
In each coaching session, your coach will ask powerful and probing questions, start new conversations, offer different perspectives and teaching points, offer experimentation and exploration, and always help you choose action steps that move you forward.
Your time together is designed to help you reach your goals, properly evaluate and re-adjust when necessary, and strengthen your confidence to grow in the areas that are most important to you. The goal is that you learn a way of being that embodies living with intention, self-reflection, self-accountability, and self-trust.
What to expect from a life coach
Listen to you openly and actively
Ask powerful questions to guide you to your own answers
Reflect/mirror back to you
Offer different perspectives
Provide structure
Assist in setting goals, planning, and strategizing
Teach you how to hold yourself accountable for what you want to achieve
Trust you to make your own decisions
Show up with your best interests at heart
Tell the truth
Believe in you and your highest good
Curious to learn more? Experience a roundtable chat with all of our coaches.
Different Types of Life Coaching
Life coaching can encompass many areas of your holistic being, but it's helpful to know there are also specialty areas they may work within. Depending on certifications and continued education experience, you could find a life coach with tailored knowledge around a niche topic you’re interested in growing around.
Leadership and executive coaching
You can find a life coach who may work specifically with leaders and those with impact to create a safe space to step out of your position and speak openly and honestly with someone who understands you. Many people value the time to be seen as human beings with challenges, values, and passions inside and outside work.
Leadership, executive, and career coaching offer the clarity, guidance, and empowerment that has a lasting effect on your entire sphere of influence. This is different from business coaching, corporate coaching, or working with career development professionals, which may focus more on the company's strategic decisions than you as an individual.
Areas this work can include:
Burnout reduction & workplace vitality
Cultivating deeper workplace connections
Talking about leadership career transitions
Understanding of self and others
Psychological self-care and resistance
Building emotionally intelligent workplaces
Building a culture of trust and safety
Conflict management and navigating practical issues in the workplace
Alignment to core values and purpose
Goal and vision setting for business owners
-> Get a glimpse into leadership coaching with this free recorded chat.
Personal growth coaching
Coaches can focus on specific needs, such as self-empowerment and confidence-building, for those who aren’t quite sure what their goals are but know how they’d like to feel. By focusing on where energy is being drained or ignited, your coach may be able to guide habits and lifestyle changes that support the best version of you.
Areas this work can include:
Overcoming fears
Becoming empowered to ask for what you need
Understanding yourself and your needs
Enhancing relationships with those around you
Building confidence in any areas of insecurity
Seeing your potential
Building self-trust
Exploring spirituality
Health and wellness coaching
You can find a life coach who specializes in health and wellness to help you feel the empowerment that comes from gaining a deeper understanding of yourself, your mental health experience, and your body. A nurturing space that invites curiosity about how your body may be holding emotions, feelings, and experiences can guide you to choose the best self-care and a particular method for regulation.
A holistic approach typically explores the connection between mental health goals and tailored practices like somatic breathing, mindfulness, intuitive movement, sleep, and nutrition, fostering a sense of connection through mind and body.
Areas this work can include:
Mindfulness and somatic techniques for emotional regulation
Finding confidence in how to care for self and body by tuning into inner wisdom
Functional nutrition approaches to support mental health, stress, anxiety, and depression
Understanding a holistic view of hormone balance, blood sugar balance, and gut balance for mental wellbeing
Cycle syncing movement, nutrition, work priorities, and self-care
Intuitive eating and movement practices
Supporting habit formation and routine consistency
-> Grab a snapshot of intuitive wellness coaching in action.
Preparing to Find Your Life Coach Online: 4 Reflection Questions
In true coaching fashion, we’ve prepared some reflection questions for you to consider as you begin your search for someone with whom you can build a trusting and valuable relationship.
Do I have a specific goal in mind?
Knowing coaches can have different specialties across various areas of life; it’s always helpful to begin with your goals. Consider what you want to achieve with a coach, what would help you feel like you’re getting the most value out of sessions, and what areas of life feel most essential to support right now.
Even if you’re unsure about your goal, a general idea about what would make the experience one you’d look forward to is a great place to begin your search. Your coach will be able to help you build on your initial thoughts as you get started and grow with you as new goals arise over time.
-> Check out this free vision-setting workshop to help you get clear on goals.
2. What is the coach's experience and certification?
As you find a life coach you may be interested in working with, explore their credentials, areas of expertise, and the background story that makes them who they are. The more you can learn about why the individual became a coach and what areas of education they’ve explored to get to where they are, the more you can see how you’d work together.
Regarding certifications, you may not know which programs are better than others. You can give credentials a quick Google search to explore some listed results on what they’re all about and ask questions directly to your potential coach. A general rule of thumb is to look for respected coach training programs like the International Coaching Federation (ICF).
Beyond that, look at client testimonials or experience working with people who seem similar to you so that you can feel great about the type of coaching and results you may see.
3. How will I measure success?
Before you choose a coach, knowing what you’re looking for in the coaching relationship is essential. How will you know the time spent in online coaching sessions is successful? What would you need to experience, feel, or see to feel worth it?
While setting goals is one step you can’t miss, knowing how you’ll measure progress is another. It may be enticing to want to see numbers or data, but the most valuable work with a coach happens when you tune into how you’re feeling and show up for yourself and others.
4. How do I feel after an initial consult call?
Most coaches provide free consultations to get to know them and ask questions that can support your decision making. Especially if you will be doing video sessions online, you can request a video consultation that helps you test-run the experience.
After meeting with a coach, you’ll better understand how well you can open up to them and align with their values to introduce them into your personal transformation journey. Typically, you’ll get a vibe from someone pretty quickly, and it’s important to sense that this person is truly standing in your corner and guiding you through anything without judgment.
Another thing to remember is that you should guide your sessions and time together as the client. By that, we mean that someone who appears to have all the answers from the first consultation may not be tailoring coaching sessions and exercises to you specifically. If you’re looking for a personalized approach in your coaching sessions, explore how you feel understood, heard, and seen in your first encounters.
Where to Find a Life Coach
The possibilities are endless for finding a life coach online, but there are a few ways to get started once you know who you’re searching for.
Online directories like the ICF coaching directory can help you find accredited coaches of choice and explore their websites or profiles. A free coach recommendation based on specific criteria can kickstart your search.
Google searches can lead you to local coaches who provide online services or virtual coaches based on specific niches, such as “wellness coach near Nebraska,” “New York area life coaches,” or “online career coaches.”
Social media can guide you with searches such as “ICF life coach” or location-specific inquiries like “Houston life coach.” Social media can showcase a coach’s personality, but be sure to explore the intentions behind their practice and double-check those credentials.
Frequently Asked Questions: Find a Life Coach
How do I know if a life coach is right for me?
Making an informed decision about finding the best possible coach is like any other important relationship. You want to feel mutual respect and like you can be your full, authentic self with a coach as you begin working with them. In sessions, you want to be sure your goals are being honored and that you enjoy how the work is impacting your life.
Your path to find a life coach might look much different than someone else’s. The type of communication you have with your potential new life coach should guide you to the ideal mentor.
Ultimately, trust your intuition and be honest if someone does not seem like an excellent fit for you now. Your life coach wants you to find the right fit, too. It’s always good to feel like the cost of a life coach equates to success in the particular area of your life where you hope to create change.
Can you find a life coach online?
Absolutely! You can find a life coach who works online through phone or video sessions as a great way to connect to the right people and professionals from the comfort of your home or office like you’d have face-to-face meetings. A virtual coach can support anyone from North Carolina and New Jersey to New Mexico and Canada without the same location-based restrictions that therapy has, usually through a simple video chat app.
Flexibility with your online coach of choice can often create a more consistent and comfortable schedule for life coaching sessions that don’t interfere with your day-to-day schedule.
Video sessions still give you a connection with your life coach and a scheduled time to meet and experience guidance toward your goals. Your coach may also support you with email and text communication in between sessions for added accountability or to be a regular resource in your life.
Should I use a directory to find a life coach?
After reflecting on everything we talked about in this blog post, you’re ready and prepared to find a life coach anywhere you’d like to begin your search. That’s because you’ll have the eye for authenticity and lead with your intention as you get to know who may be available to support you.
Can I trust a #lifecoach on social media?
Social media is a great place to learn about coaches in your area or online, as long as you take the time to research their background and get intentional about how their offerings resonate. Many coaches will offer a free consultation call that you can use to get a more personalized feel for who they are, and how you connect to their message. It also helps to have a list of questions ready to ask a potential coach so you feel as informed as possible about what they may offer for your life and goals.
Remember how strong that gut instinct is!
How long does it typically take to see results from life coaching?
While we all want to hear that results can come quickly, everyone’s life coaching experience differs. We know that valuable and deep work often takes some time. The results you’re looking for can vary when you’ll see them, but feeling empowered and seen with actionable takeaways and advice is something you can expect after every session.
If you feel a hunch that you’re being promised quick results that don’t feel realistic, definitely open up that conversation with your coach and ask any questions that help you feel great about what’s ahead.
Are there any specific qualifications I should look for in a life coach?
The International Coaching Federation (ICF) is a well-respected coaching education and credentialing body. As you explore various niche topics like health and wellness, you can also research the top qualifications in each of those specific areas.
Remember that you can always ask your coach about their education and experience as you get to know them.
Find a life coach for you
At Modern Therapy, we co-create an energetic space to discuss and design the bigger picture of life for those who are open and ready to receive it, with tailored and thoughtful questions encompassing our training and life experiences to unlock the inner awareness that ignites powerful change. We become advocates to champion what people want most from their life experiences and guide them to clarity with tangible and intentional steps forward.
As coaches, we hold ourselves to a certain standard to ensure that this space is what each client needs it to be. We bring intentionality and a transformation mindset to help them maintain momentum in the direction they most want to explore. You can also explore health coaching and leadership coaching here at MT.
We can’t wait to support you and continue introducing the value of the coaching space before, during, after, and as an alternative to the therapeutic process.
Feeling eager to keep reading? Check out a few more blog posts from our coaches:
The Mind-Body Connection: Finding Confidence Through Your Inner Wisdom
An Open Conversation on Parenting Through Big School Transitions
