10 Reasons You're Afraid to Start that Coaching Business

July 2, 2019

Lumia

As anyone who's become a life coach knows, there is a world of difference between wanting to build a coaching business and actually doing it. And sometimes, people need that extra push to make this dream a reality. For us, it’s simply about getting to know this person and knowing how to encourage them. Because let’s face it, some of us are afraid to start a coaching business, and that fear is rooted in a myriad of reasons. Some of us may have gotten the best coaching training already but are still hesitant to building our business. No shame here. We’re all about encouragement. But the first step is acknowledging the possible reasons why you’re afraid to start your unqiue coaching business.

It’s an uncertain path and you’re not a huge fan of uncertainty

Uncertainty is scary, for sure. But once you begin your journey to learn to be a life coach, it gets less and less scary. Our suggestion to get over this reasoning is to acknowledge your feeling of fear of uncertainty. The earlier you accept this, the earlier you can start getting to know it.

And by getting to know, we mean gain a better understanding on why you don’t like uncertain paths. What is it about uncertainty that makes you feel uneasy and scared? Once you start answering these questions, you’ll slowly be able to get over it.

You feel like you don’t have enough knowledge

This is something so relatable. And even as experienced coaches, we get this feeling sometimes. One of the most effective ways to get over it is to keep reminding yourself you will never have ‘enough knowledge.’ And that is true. Life is a journey of learning and even as you’re building lifestyle coaching courses, or delaying the process of it, you are learning.

So which path do you want? The Actually Building It path or the Let’s Delay It A Bit path? Coaches need to have this strong sense of confidence in their skills, but also the open-mindedness. These two, when combined, would make you a great life coach.

You think you don’t have the time

Everyone always seems to be bound by the idea that we don’t have enough time. But we only have 24 hours each day no matter what we do, the same number of hours in a day as Beyonce! We need to learn to make the most of that time, and prioritize. This fear, just like any others, it legit. And one thing you can do to overcome it is to take things a bit slower. List down the things you need to do today, things in relation to creating your lifestyle coaching courses, for instance.

Make this list as realistic as possible and show up. Every single day. Slowly making progress by checking off a few things every day is way better than stressing for months on end and never actually getting anything accomplished. The next thing you know, your course is already ready, beta-tested and all, and you’re good to get clientele.

You think you're bad at selling (yourself, your services, anything)

One of the most common things among coaches is that they struggle to sell themselves a.k.a. their services. Keep in mind that building a coaching business is basically selling your coaching skills and knowledge. So how do you get past the fear of selling your services? By not thinking of it as a fear, but rather a skill you need to hone. Instead of saying “I’m scared to put my services out there,” say “I’m gonna have to improve on this,” and know that one of the best ways to improve on something is to keep doing it over and over.

Find ways to improve your offerings and give value. Stand out in the crowd and offer something that people truly want. You'll begin to see people come to you. Learning how to connect with your ideal client and how to sell the services that you have is important though, so learn to get comfortable with the idea.

You feel like you don’t have enough content to share

They say content is king, and in many aspects of a business, that is true. Content is, unfortunately, also among the top reasons why coaches feel afraid to actually start their business. People tend to think that even if they’ve build lifestyle coaching courses that they don’t have enough shareable content that go with it. Regardless, keep in mind that you can always build content along the way.

And, as we always say here at Lumia, document rather than produce -- show your life, your every day, share your thoughts. Lumia Coaching co-founder John Kim is excellent at this, and has made an entire practice out of authentically showing his daily life.

Building a business demands consistency and you fear you’ll fall through

Don’t we all fear this? The idea of falling through something we’re passionate about. We think, even before we start, that we will fail at building whatever it is we want to build. You’re not alone in this thought. But if you’re on the brink, standing, thinking about your wild idea to learn to be a life coach, we want you to know that you may or may not fall through.

But the thing is, you shouldn’t let this thought stop you. It's easier to succeed when you're surrounded by a group of people who are buidling their businesses as well, and who are dedicated to becoming coaches. Find your people and work together to succeed.

You always feel like something is missing

This is perhaps that kind of feeling that will never go away. The thing about people is that oftentimes, we want things to feel complete and perfectly in place before we get the ball rolling. But truth is, if you’re onto something big, it can feel like something is missing.

This is the side effect of overwhelm, and this is totally normal, even if you’ve already got the best coaching training. We suggest to keep reminding yourself that whatever that “missing thing” is, even if you can’t pinpoint what it is, you can fill it later. This way, you can get started on building your coaching business rather than simply looking at the grand idea from the sidelines.

You’re simply afraid to fail

The fear of failure is inevitable when we're trying new things. But the thing is, if you want to build something, you will fail. Even the great coaches we admire today have failed. Even those who have successful programs and fancy websites have failed. If you want to learn to be a life coach it’s pretty important to also learn how to embrace failure. Besides, it's not failure -- it's information and you will pick yourself back up and have a little bit more information going forward.

Mistakes and challenges will happen, but when you embrace them, when you build a positive relationship with failure, you can easily navigate through it. Now, all you need is to get the best coaching training and move forward into building your career. It’s not going to be easy but with the right training and solid support system, not to mention the burning passion to do it, you can and you will make it happen.

Underneath it all, you’re also afraid to succeed

Often masked as fear of failure, we also have this underlying fear of success. Like, what if we cannot handle the success? What if we succeed and we’re not really “prepared for it?” What are we going to do? How are we going to handle it?

These questions lurk in the minds of many creatives and entrepreneurs. So even when they have the best coaching training, they still have this weird feeling of fear they cannot pinpoint. You are not alone in this. And really, there's is no handbook on how to handle success. So instead of being afraid of it, we suggest you embrace it - success and the uncertainty of it. Don’t just learn to be a life coach, learn how to be a successful one, and you can do this by putting yourself out there and enjoying the process.

‍Ready to Become A Coach?

One of our values at Lumia is that we dare to be different. Our life coaches ignore the expectations society tries to impose on them, and seek to live from their own truth instead. If you are ready to step into your power and you’d like a partner in the process, come check out Lumia Life Coach Training. Grounded in science, our ICF accredited program features authentic instructors, a robust curriculum, and business instruction to prepare you for liftoff.