Coaching as a Career: The Honest Pros And Cons, According To 53 Coaches
We recently asked our audience of coaches this open-ended question:
“What are the best and worst parts of coaching as a career?”
Our sample included coaches from all different coaching niches: executive coaching, business coaching, life coaching, health coaching, etc.
We analyzed a total of 53 responses. We grouped them into categories. We even looked at how long each respondent had been coaching for.
The results were fascinating.
Today, I’m going to share what we found.
Here’s a Summary of Our 3 Key Findings:
What coaches love most is the fulfillment they get from helping clients. Other pros include freedom, community, and creativity. (See More)
What coaches hate most is having to wear so many hats while running their business. Other cons include mindset struggles, bad clients, and other toxic aspects of the industry. (See More)
These trends didn’t change significantly based on years of experience. The most experienced coaches cited the same pros and cons as less experienced coaches, with a similar frequency. (See More)
👉🏽 I’ve created a short guide that lists 8 ways to avoid the cons of coaching as a career. Before we dive into a detailed analysis of each key finding, click below to get access:
The Best Part of Coaching Is the Sense of Fulfillment
What coaches appreciate most about their career, by a long shot, is the fulfillment they get from seeing their clients transform. Note that we allowed respondents to mention more than one good/bad thing about coaching as a career. That’s why there are more than 53 total mentions.
The Pros of Coaching
Here are the parts of coaching as a career that our respondents liked most, in order:
1 - Fulfillment ✨
A whopping 81% of coaches who responded to our survey mentioned fulfillment as one of the best parts of coaching.
As a coach you have the privilege of watching people step into their potential. When the challenges you are helping your client face are challenges you have worked through yourself, it makes the work all the more meaningful.
You can actually see the difference you make in people's life. You get the satisfaction that you are doing what you are supposed to be doing. That you are making a difference in this world.
“I love working 1:1 with people to help them make meaningful changes in their lives. To witness and support people taking ownership of their lives and creating more ease and joy and alignment is beyond rewarding.”
— Cristin Condon
You get to see firsthand how your work can dramatically change a person’s perspective. This can often translate to a major life change or shift in thought about a circumstance or situation.
Connecting on a deeper level with people always brings a healthy reminder that everyone has a story you are not aware of. We only get to experience one scene of the movie of their life, and without intentional conversations, we make mistaken assumptions. Coaching lets me see deeper into their story and help them find themselves there.
But fulfillment isn’t the only thing that coaches appreciate about their work. The second most mentioned pro of a career in coaching was…
2 - Freedom 🏖
Coaches appreciate the freedom that comes from running their own business. In fact, 24% of the coaches we surveyed mentioned how important autonomy is to them.
Some clients are great, and others don’t work well with you. Unlike a 9-5 job, as a coach running your own business, you can pick who you want to work with, giving you incredible freedom and autonomy.
I can remain working in the industry I love, while maintaining freedom over my time.
3 - Community ❤️
The next commonly mentioned pro of coaching (16% of respondents) was community. Interestingly, other coaches cited loneliness as one of the cons of coaching. This suggests that finding community is something you need to be proactive about.
The generosity and camaraderie of other coaches. It can be a lonely career, but I've made amazing connections and learned loads from others in the field.
The good parts are the connection, the collaboration, the shift of perception and the growth.
4 - Creativity 🧑🏻🎨
The least cited pro of coaching was creativity. 11% respondents mentioned that their coaching business was a vehicle for learning and self-expression.
There are so many methods and venues in which you can deliver value, which gives you the opportunity to work in a diversity of ways according to your desired lifestyle.
The Worst Part of Coaching Is Wearing So Many Hats
What coaches dislike most about their career, by a narrow margin, is the fact that they have to wear so many hats as a business owner. For example, many coaches have a hard time marketing themselves and getting clients.
The Cons of Coaching
Here are the parts of coaching as a career that our respondents liked least, in order:
1 - Wearing Too Many Hats 🎩
73% of the coaches who responded to our survey mentioned running the business as one of the worst parts of coaching. Basically, coaches don’t like to be marketers, administrators, and entrepreneurs in addition to being a coach. Other coaches expressed frustration with the business model itself.
You get lots of great training in coaching itself but there is very little focus on helping you start up your business within that training or after the training has finished. There needs to be a lot more support with that (i.e. more than one session on working externally as a coach).
Sometimes the "hustle" can really get in the way of being present for your clients and coaching. It's easy to get burned out building a business, wearing all of the hats to grow the business. And somewhere in there, coaching happens. :)
Limited participation in the upside of the businesses you build. Limited scalability outside trading time for money.
Feelings of inadequacy around marketing. I am gifted in few things, and marketing is not one of them. Alas I can’t do the GOOD thing about coaching without working out the BAD.
The second most mentioned con of coaching as a career was…
2 - Mindset Struggles 🧠
Coaches find the mindset side of entrepreneurship to be challenging. In fact, 69% of our respondents mentioned mindset struggles as the bad part of coaching (a close second to wearing too many hats). Mindset struggles include things like self-doubt, comparison, loneliness, and lack of motivation.
Not always knowing which next step to take, having to rely on yourself for everything, continually putting yourself out there even as your own path twists and turns.
Tying your self worth to your clients' results.
Because personal growth and self development are a constant journey and not a destination, there can be this constant feeling of “I need to do more, learn more, take more courses, grow faster”. It can become an unhealthy obsession and, at times, more self destructive than helpful.
— Ryan Roi
It can be extremely isolating and lonely if you are an introvert. Which then leads to being in your head too much and spiraling out of control when things don’t go as planned. You have to be proactive about networking and building relationships which is a completely other set of skills separate from coaching.
3 - Bad Clients 👿
37% of respondents mentioned difficult clients as a con of coaching. They mentioned things like bad attitudes, blaming, and resistance to change.
Sometimes, it just doesn’t feel like the client is making progress. You start wondering if it is the client, if it is you, or just not the right fit. Often, this is temporary. Sometimes, it is not, and you have to tell the client that you have to terminate the agreement because it wouldn’t be ethical to continue. Not a pleasant situation to be in.
Difficult clients who say they want help, but what they really want is emotional attention and soothing, not real change or real empowerment. About half of my clients simply won't move past their old stories, no matter what. They cling to old wounds like they are a life raft.
4 - Toxic Industry Dynamics ☢️
36% of respondents mentioned the coaching industry itself as a negative component. They spoke to the role of coaching certifications, the lack of diversity, and the saturated nature of the coaching industry. This is something I address directly in my article about life coaching as a business.
Anyone can become a coach in the absence of regulatory requirements. People without proper training and certifications can call themselves a coach, giving the genuine people in the profession a bad name.
Everyone seems to cringe at the words “life coach.” It’s gotten a bad rap. Honestly I don’t know where that comes from, but I have it too! Just like with anything, there’s good and bad — coaches, mechanics, doctors, etc.
There is an incredible lack of diversity of people of color (in the US market) for credentialed coaches.
Note: If you’re struggling with any of the above, I’ve created a short guide to help you avoid the cons of coaching as a career. Click the button below to get free access:
The Pros and Cons of Coaching Don’t Change Much
The coaches in our sample cited similar pros and cons, at a similar frequency, regardless of the number of years they’ve spent coaching. The majority of respondents had been actively coaching between one and five years.
Years of Experience
Coaches with 5+ years of experience were more likely to list mindset struggles as a con over wearing too many hats. And coaches with less than 1 year experience were more likely to mention toxic industry dynamics as a con over having bad clients. But these differences were not statistically significant.
Overall, it seems that the good and bad parts of coaching stay relatively steady over the course of one’s career.
The Bottom Line on Coaching as a Career
👍🏽 PROS:
1 - Fulfillment ✨
2 - Freedom 🏖
3 - Community ❤️
4 - Creativity 🧑🏻🎨
👎🏽 CONS:
1 - Too Many Hats 🎩
2 - Mindset Struggles 🧠
3 - Bad Clients 👿
4 - Toxic Industry ☢️
Our research suggests that these pros and cons stay consistent regardless of how long you coach for.
The good news is, you can flip some of these cons into pros by changing your beliefs and behavior.
For example, some coaches listed loneliness as something that made their career difficult. But other coaches said that community was one of the best parts of coaching. If you can find a community of other coaches or entrepreneurs, for example by forming a mastermind group or doing a coach training, you can turn the worst part of your career into the best part.
I’ve created a short guide with 8 other ways to flip the cons of coaching into pros.
I’ve organized the list by con - for example, if you’re getting a lot of bad clients, I give you two strategies to turn it around.
Click the button below to get access to the free guide:
So…is life coaching a good career? That depends on what you want. If you want a fulfilling career that offers you a ton of freedom, then the cons are worth overcoming.
