Have You Uncovered Your Sacred Work as a Coach?

Congratulations! You’ve finished your coach training program. But now what?

Most of the advice you get after life coach training is that your next step is to choose a profitable niche, create a high ticket program, set up your website and online marketing system, and start getting in as many clients as possible so you can replace your income & make six figures in your first year of business. 

I disagree. In fact, I believe that this approach is the reason why so many purpose & meaning driven new coaches NEVER get their important work out into the world.

Why? Because as a new coach, you likely first need to:

1. Align your coaching practice with your purpose & soul’s niche (the niche that is connected to your purpose).

Not every life coach is primarily motivated by purpose, but when you are - it means that you NEED to do work that feels personally meaningful or you suffer. And as a coach, this mean’s aligning everything about your coaching practice around your purpose and soul’s niche.

But how can you figure out your Soul’s Niche when you’re just out of training? Most of the time you can’t – because you simply don’t have enough information yet on who you love to work with, and what you love coaching around. You likely just have a best guess for now – and need more time, coaching practice, and information to figure things out!

2. Hone your craft and further build your competence & confidence around coaching.

I know this is a bit contrary to what you’ve likely been told in your training program – but I don’t believe most new coaches emerge from their first coach training with enough experience to feel authentically competent and confident.

When you train as a counsellor, therapist or social worker – your next step out of training is often a practicum, where you work with a variety of clients under the supervision of a mentor – so you gain competence & confidence in your skills. So why should coaching be any different?

While you may think your lack of confidence is a “mindset” problem that you need to overcome – I believe that confidence is often a direct result of a combination of competence and clarity.  As a new coach, the way to gain both competence and confidence is by working with more people and honing your craft.

3. Learn a completely new skill area – business, marketing and entrepreneurship.

And this includes figuring out if running your own business is for you – OR – if you want to use your coaching skills and do your personally meaningful work in another way. 

This is another one of my contrary beliefs. I DON’T believe every life coach is also meant to be an entrepreneur. In fact, I believe most new coaches who are purpose-motivated don’t really want to be entrepreneurs – and instead, running a business is more of a necessary evil for getting their important work out into the world. And it’s really hard to know if running a business is for you – until you’ve tried it out for a while.

4. Set realistic expectations for where YOU’RE at right now.

This is the big one. The reality is that as a new coach right out of training, it usually takes at least a year or more to:

• Work with enough clients to really get clear on your Soul’s Niche,
• Gain the coaching confidence and clarity you need to create a higher priced program that feels authentic, aligned and energizing, and begin marketing in a bigger way,
• Learn enough about running a business and marketing to know if being an entrepreneur is even for you (or if you want to use your coaching skills another way).

And then it often takes at least another two to three years of running your business and marketing the program that’s aligned with your Soul’s Niche to really gain enough traction to think about replacing your income.

The reality is, if you’re a new purpose-driven life coach with no background in business and marketing, then replacing your income & making six figures in your first year after training is NOT a realistic expectation.

It’s at this point that I usually start to feel like a bit of a downer. After all, don’t all life coaches dream of making six figures in their first year while enjoying a freedom lifestyle? Isn’t that why you became a coach in the first place? 

Well, here’s the good news. No. If you’re a purpose-motivated life coach, this was not YOUR original dream. YOUR original dream was likely to do work as a coach that helps others and feels deeply purposeful, meaningful and aligned. 

And I suspect that somewhere along the line you may have forgotten that. Which is easy to do! 

So... as a purpose-motivated empathic and intuitive life coach - what IS your next step after coach training? Or... if you're already coaching but something feels off, draining, or misaligned - what can you do to get things back on track?

Your next step is to do the deep work around connecting to your sacred work. 

As a coach, this means connecting to the niche and the way you want to be a coach that is deeply aligned with who you are and your soul's purpose.

And I say this is DEEP work because when you're a purpose-motivated coach, you're likely also an empath. It means you have likely spent your entire life tuning in to other people's needs - tuning in to how amazing they are and supporting everything they do.

And it's also likely that you've tried to do "the right thing" - tried to have the career that everyone thinks you should have, be the person everyone wants you to be...

But this also means that you've also likely never put yourself first. You've never taken a deep look at the amazing gifts and genius that make up who you are.

And you've never taken the time to excavate the rules, "shoulds" and programming that other people have placed on you - vs. what is authentically true for who you are. 

The reality is that until you do this deep work, you'll never really be clear on your sacred work. You'll never be clear on your soul's niche. And something about your coaching practice will never feel aligned. 

So what is your next step? Your next step is to DO the deep work to uncover YOUR sacred work - your soul's niche!

As a Master Certified Soul's Calling Coach, I'm so thrilled to partner with Master Coach Instructor Bev Barnes to offer a new program specifically designed to help new coaches and experienced coaches who are purpose adjacent to do the deep work needed to connect to their Sacred Work. 

Introducing Roadmap to Your Sacred Work

Roadmap to your Sacred Work is a high touch three month course and coaching program that will take you through the 10 step Soul Success Path for Life Coaches - the steps you need to take to do the deep work to connect to your soul's niche and finally start doing your sacred work. We begin February 9 and we would LOVE to see you there. 

Curious? You can learn more right here: Roadmap to Your Sacred Work