How to Become a Spiritual Life Coach in 2024
If you’re exploring how to become a spiritual coach in 2024, you’ve got your foot in the door of an exciting personal development space. Spiritual coaching, while still a niche offering, has quickly risen in popularity in recent years. The demand is there. And coaches are waking up to the potential to build meaningful businesses around it.
But what does it actually take to become a spiritual life coach? In this article, we offer the most up-to-date info on this topic, helping aspiring coaches understand what’s involved in 2024 and beyond. We hope you find these insights helpful.
Time Commitment to Become a Spiritual Life Coach
Let’s first consider, in a general sense, how long it actually takes to become a spiritual life coach. The answer may surprise you.
Since there is no formal credential required to become a spiritual coach (and no de facto credentialing firm watching over this niche market), the fact is anyone can call themself a spiritual life coach. With such a low barrier to entry, it essentially takes no time to “become” one—a reality that brings both opportunities and drawbacks.
If you want to change your LinkedIn header to “Spiritual Life Coach” right after reading this article, you’re free to do so. Nor will you get in trouble for doing it. However, consider that just because you can, it doesn’t mean you should! A general rule of thumb here is that coaches must self-regulate their positioning in the coaching space. You’re not actually a spiritual life coach until you have some training and education in spirituality, a few practice clients, and some early feedback that you can deliver real value for clients seeking spiritual guidance through coaching.
For those who seek to become a spiritual life coach more formally, a coaching certification is the way to go, as we cover in the next section. Pursuing a coaching certification will give you a more well-defined idea of the time commitment involved—most take anywhere from a few months to a year.
Certification Options for Spiritual Coaches
If you’re wondering how to become a certified spiritual life coach, you’ll have a handful of worthwhile options. First, understand that the most credible coaching certifications in 2024 train and educate coaches broadly. The best programs are certified by the International Coaching Federations (“ICF certified”). Those in the coaching industry will tell you there are the “blue chip” certifications, or the most trustworthy and worth your time.
When it comes to certifications for spiritual life coaches, it may be helpful to temporarily separate the two concepts of “spirituality” and “coaching.” While you may aspire to blend those two concepts, think of them as different curriculums. Learning how to coach is one thing and learning how to embrace spirituality is another. Earning a credible certification—which can certainly elevate your business—will focus on coaching, and not necessarily spirituality.
The spiritual aspect of your coaching service is more of a positioning and branding decision. Once you become a certified coach, you may decide to channel your coaching abilities to serve those who want an extra focus on spirituality. In this case, you need to be proficient both as a coach and a spiritual mentor. How you go about developing the spiritual side of your business is up to you!
To summarize: Reliable and credible “spiritual coaching certifications” don’t exist nearly as abundantly as more generalized coaching certifications. Your best bet is to explore an ICF-certified coaching program. Then, use that boost in credibility to position yourself as an ICF-certified coach who specializes in spirituality.
The Logistics of Creating a Coaching Business
To become a spiritual life coach, you may want to consider the less fun side of starting a business. For example, what are the necessary investments? You’ll likely need a website, some business tools (i.e. scheduling/invoicing software) and perhaps a small marketing budget.
Other considerations include the legal structure of your business. The most common way to start a coaching business is to either operate as a sole proprietorship or a Limited Liability company.
Generally, sole proprietorships are the easiest to set up. There's no need for special paperwork to create one. If you choose to do business using your personal name, you can start functioning as a sole proprietor right away. On the other hand, an LLC offers more guardrails to ensure a coach’s personal assets are protected. The extra security comes with the downside of being more expensive to set up a sole proprietorship.
These considerations should not be viewed as legal advice, and you’ll want to do plenty of research on what makes the most sense for you as you set up your spiritual coaching business. We cover business structures in more detail in this article on how to become a life coach in California (which may still be helpful even if you’re not from California).
Spiritual Coaching Niches in Demand in 2024
The world of spirituality knows no bounds, and in 2024, there is no shortage of sub-niches worth exploring as a coach. For some, “spiritual coaching” says everything you need to know—a space to work on ones’ spiritual foundation and purpose. For others, it takes a bit more specificity for spiritual coaching to resonate.
For coaches, the challenge is positioning your practice around some pillar concepts and ideologies that define the experience. As a coach, what areas of spirituality have shaped your life? What areas do you know well enough to give you the confidence to help guide others?
For those looking to develop what exactly they seek to achieve as a spiritual coach, the following areas are seeing growing demand. Some of these are directly related to spirituality, while some have an adjacent focus.
Mindfulness and Meditation Coaching: Focuses on teaching clients techniques for mindfulness and meditation, aiding in stress reduction and enhancing overall well-being.
Energy Healing and Chakra Balancing: Centers on helping clients balance their energy fields and chakras, promoting physical, emotional, and spiritual healing.
Holistic Wellness Coaching: Takes a comprehensive approach to health by integrating physical, mental, and spiritual aspects to achieve overall life balance and wellness.
Life Purpose and Fulfillment Coaching: Aids individuals in discovering their life's purpose and cultivating a path towards personal fulfillment and self-realization.
Transformational Spiritual Coaching: Focuses on guiding clients through significant life changes and spiritual awakenings, fostering personal growth and transformation.
Again, for some coaches, “spirituality” in the aggregate is “niched-down” enough. Further developing your positioning as a spiritual coach comes down to your unique situation, service offerings, and selling points.
How Much Do Spiritual Life Coaches Make?
While data specifically on spiritual coaching salaries may not exist, we do know that as recently as 2022, coach practitioners in the United States earned an average of $67,800. However, salary data should always be taken with a grain of salt, especially in a space like coaching, where market participants range so widely in experience and level of commitment.
For a full-time coach serving clients in their private practice, salaries can and do exceed the six-figure mark. Building a book of business that supports those earnings is the challenge for most—and one that may require years of marketing, selling, and networking. For more on how to get coaching clients, make sure to subscribe to CoachRanks Insider…
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Breaking down spiritual coaching earnings by hourly rates, most coaches charge between $50 to $300 per hour. Some experts and specialists in the space are able to generate more—think $500 to $1,000 per hour—but these folks are not the norm. But who's to say you can’t become the Tony Robbins of the spiritual coaching space?! So long as the industry grows, it’s a safe bet that demand will grow along with it. New entrants to the space should feel at ease by the direction of the industry.
TLDR: Becoming a Spiritual Life Coach in 2024
For those who want the quick summary on becoming a spiritual life coach, here’s how we see things at CoachRanks:
The coaching industry’s growth presents a great opportunity for spiritual coaches to enter the market.
Barrier to entry is very low which may help you get started, but those who want to stand out should consider pursuing a coaching certification.
Coaches focusing can make meaningful income serving pockets of demand in a highly diverse landscape of different spiritual ideologies.
Working your way up to a successful coaching business takes time, effort, education and some marketing know-how. But as many are finding, the work is worth it.
We hope this guide provides you with the launchpad to start planning some rational steps to become a spiritual life coach. You may be onto something great—onward and upward!
