Has anyone retrained as a Life Coach?

[DrHadenough]

I'm a GP and clinical academic currently. Thoroughly burned out and had enough of General Practice and the NHS, both in my own practice and dealing with practices for student placements. I've tried lots of changes to make things work over the past few years, and have come to the sad conclusion that I need to get out completely.

I've been doing some online careers questionnaires, and thinking about what I enjoy about my current roles. I like the idea of having my own business, and helping people who are motivated to make improvements to their lives. I come up as 'creative' and 'entrepreneur' on most of the careers tests I've tried. I'm an INFJ on MBTI.

One of the things that looks like a possible fit is 'Life coaching'. There's loads of courses etc available, but most of it looks too good to be true. If you're a life coach, I'd love to hear how you got into it, what qualifications you've done, and what the actual job is like day to day please.

By 'too good to be true' I mean that there seem to be a lot more courses than actual coaches, so some of feels a bit like an MLM. I know there are people using executive coaches in business, but I don't have the sort of corporate background that would suit that.
I love the idea of being a careers advisor too.

A lot of "life coaches" are MLM's.

How many people have you met who have ever had a life coach?

I suspect anyone who “earns a living” as a “life coach” is either independently wealthy or has a high earning spouse, it’s not a real job.

More of a scam type of thing. People selling courses on how to become successful etc, but the only way they got that lifestyle is through selling courses. If you do decide to go for it, you need a niche.
what about a careers coach? Business coach?

Coaches in general are predatory and tend to be a scam. Why not retrain as a Psychiatrist?

Thanks, that confirms my suspicions. Careers coach would be good potentially, I'll look into that.
I've thought a few times about training as a psychotherapist, but would prefer to deal with essentially 'healthy' people who need guidance and encouragement, rather than proper mental illness. I can be a bit of a sponge!

Psychiatry would be 6 years full time training from this point, and I don't fancy doing inpatient psychiatry. I found my Psych placements as a medical student distressing.

I know someone who ‘trained’ as a life coach. Everyone thought ‘WTF’ as she was one of the most chaotic , disorganised and unstable person in our circle.
although she qualified(?) she didn’t seem to get much business. She’s now gone onto other whacky lines such as Crystal therapy🙄

I’m sorry that you are so fed up and that your real skills will be lost. Is there anyway you could train or switch to some ( more reputable) counselling role?

If you're a gp you could certainly become a lifestyle coach. Advising people on how to maximise sleep / exercise / nutrition etc.

I see a life coach as more of a career coach than well-being - loads of my managers have had life coaches.

Counselling isn't regulated (not the same as therapy) so it could be a good shortcut.

Psychotherapy training is also much longer/more expensive than life coaching training.
I have a couple of friends who have a diploma in life coaching. One has quite a few paying clients, but the other is struggling to find people. I think the market is saturated (and unregulated).

I qualified as a life coach 9 years ago. I have also earned accreditation.

When I first qualified, life coaching was very much about individuals,and helping them to make the decisions to take them where they wanted to go in life. It was always a difficult line to get into, but a lot of businesses do employ coaches who then often gained individual clients.

However since then the industry has changed, and has gone from being about the individuals to being more about the coaches and the amount of money they can make. Rather than individual life coaching you will now see these seminars pop up about “how to be a better person/how to live your life” yada yada which are essentially events where the “life coach” will stand up and tell you how they were on their knees, how they came in with nothing and look at where they’re at, and “you too can become that if you just let go of the negative energy and stop working to the script,” and so it goes on.

Typically you could pay about £1000 to attend one of these kinds of seminars or if you get a beginner you might pay a couple of hundred.

The industry became so detached from what I originally trained to be that it wasn’t something I wanted my name associated with, and so I gave it up.

I think courses in things like this are bullshit but money can be made doing this for very rich people but that will all depend on you branding and marketing yourself and doing lots of legwork and getting recommendations.

You could look into doing the Diploma in Career Guidance which is the initial qualification to be a career coach.

I think mumsnet has (a somewhat justified) bias towards the coaching industry. Unfortunately there’s a lot of bad coaching that discredits the industry as a who but this is very short sited, there is so so much great work that people do in this area. Please look outside mumsnet to make your decision.
There is a sleezy MLM side but you can spot that a mile off. Of course that wont be what you will be doing and you don’t need to associate with that.
I worked as a marketing manager and retrained in 2018. I use my marketing experience and qualification combined to help people find work they enjoy, which for my clients is usually setting up their own business.
it had taken me 2-3 years to build my business up to where I’m earning the same as my old salary. It’s very enjoyable and rewarding.
I’m also an INFJ and i think our personalities are really suited to this type of work.
I agree finding a niche is helpful and with your background as a GP there are so many ways you could bring that knowledge and experience into your coaching work.
My advice would be do your research, find people out there that are doing similar who’s work you like. This will offer an alternative view to the MLM nonsense and hopefully give you some inspiration as to how you could do it yourself

What about setting up as a botox doctor - you could earn good money and not too stressful?

Aesthetics wouldn't be for me. I doubt anyone would want to see a botox doctor with this many wrinkles! 😆
Keep the suggestions coming, this is helping...

How does wellbeing/ lifestyle coach work?
I could see a niche in helping middle-aged women (like me!) to optimise their health and wellbeing through a holistic approach.

Maybe I need some careers guidance myself first!!

The people I know who've done life coaching couldn't punch their own way out of a wet paper bag. Perhaps unfair, but I hold it in the same esteem as MLM, social influencing and motivational speaking.

What about hypnotherapy? Are you particularly keen to be self-employed?

I was offered free sessions with a life coach by a charity and found them very helpful in helping set the direction of my life. It was an interesting experience as I didn't know what to expect - much along the lines of how @MayThe4th explained it when first qualified.

I retesting take. I'm actually signed up to start a coaching course in September as it will fit alongside my profession and will support me to deliver something that I believe will be really useful - a kind of hybrid between coaching and my profession so I'm not training simply to be a life coach, but to use coaching skills to deliver a programme I'm developing,

I do think that the world and his wife appear to be life coaches but I think if you have a niche it can work well. Sober coaching for example?

Health and well-being coach sounds good. If you want accrediting look at the generic coaching bodies and their training requirements, there are a few

https://coachingfederation.org
www.associationforcoaching.com
emccuk.org/

I would recommend the books on coaching by Jenny Rogers. Not life coaching, more executive coaching, but she's excellent and her books are very readable.

Why don’t you open up a private GP practice? I’ve used private GP to get vaccinations for my kids that are not offered on NHS, and emergency appointments like antibiotics for a UTI. If you find a wealthy area I’m absolutely sure you will find a demand for it. Lots of wealthy people also have Bupa/Axa healthcare insurance. You could pick your hours, work with exactly the team you want to employ, or rent out space in the surgery for other clinicians to use. You would have more autonomy.

I’ve not long been for a Nuffield well-being check that involved seeing a GP to go through blood tests, have a physical checkup and discuss lifestyle and ways to improve things, might be worth a think about? Or even something to replicate on a small scale?