Frequently Asked Questions
How Can We Help?
Please explore answers to common questions below OR click the CHAT BUTTON in the bottom right corner of the page to answer your question using our ChatBot or connect to a live agent!
Common Life Coaching Questions
Most life coaches do not have any official experience in a field that is directly related to life coaching. Instead, they bring with them both their life experience and their unique work experience. Often coaches coach in a specific niche, in-which they have unique knowledge and experience. For example, entrepreneurs coach business start-ups, personal trainers become health coaches, teachers coach others on public speaking, etc. In most cases, coaches enroll in training programs before beginning their coaching practice. This gives them a foundation of understand about what coaching is, the psychology behind it, and methodologies and processes used. There are a variety of programs out there. Some are basic, some advanced. Some are about coaching in general, while others focus on specific niches. Ultimately, what training you need in order to coach is up to you.
Find out more information here.
After over a decade in the life coaching industry and coaching and training over 100,000 life coaches, we have come to realize there is a simple formula for life coaching success:
COMPETENCY (aka, being an effective coach)
+ MARKETING (aka, reaching the right clients)
= Great RESULTS for your clients and PROFITABILITY for you
There are 4 keys to all successful life coach training. The first two keys develop the first component of life coaching success: COMPETENCY. The second two keys develop the second component of life coaching success: MARKETING.
1. HOW: Learn proven strategies and techniques that give you the skills to be an effective life coach
2. WHAT: Learn and create step-by-step processes that guide your clients to achieve the specific results they want
3. WHO & WHERE: Identify who your ideal clients are, what problems they have, how you can solve their problems, and where you can connect with them
4. MARKET: Structure your coaching in a way that packages your unique gifts into a results-oriented program you can offer clients, and learn marketing strategies that have been proven to work for life coaches, such as joint ventures, speaking and free sessions.
Most importantly, GET STARTED (don’t wait for everything to be perfect) and KEEP GOING (by continuing to learn and grow as you go)!
Find out more about the 4 keys to success! CLICK HERE
Niche coaching utilizes core coaching principles along with highly specialized processes focused on a particular area that assist clients toward achieving their goal. Popular coaching niches include: health, career, life purpose, happiness, goal attainment, executive, fitness, dating, spiritual and business. There are dozens of other, more specialized niches. Many coaches narrow their focus by working exclusively with a specific age group or population which they can uniquely relate to, such as empty-nesters, retirees, recent graduates, or people rebuilding their lives after illness. Other coaches offer services in which their lifetime’s worth of career experience can serve as a catalyst for their clients’ careers, such as entrepreneurs coaching budding entrepreneurs, seasoned sales professionals coaching budding salespeople, or anyone with expertise that someone else would want access to.
In the rapidly growing field of life coaching, focusing on a targetable, highly motivated niche market has become a key to success because it:
• Helps you stand out from the crowd because your clients are coming to you for specific results that you are offering, rather than simply general “coaching”
• Takes the guesswork out of coaching because your coaching process is structured around a specific outcome
• Increases your confidence because you’re coaching based what you know and have experienced yourself
• Makes marketing EASY because you are a) promoting a specific RESULT and b) know exactly who your ideal clients are
Because of this, focusing your life coaching around a specific niche area is the most profitable AND fulfilling type of coaching.
Find out more about how to choose the right niche!
CLICK HERE
Life coaching certifications are educational programs that train life coaches in various aspects of coaching and offer a certificate (offered by that organization) endorsing the coach who has completed the training program. There are many organizations that offer certification programs, and there are many types of coaching certifications.
Having a coach certification simply means that you have completed a program offered by a Coach Training Organization and have acquired the knowledge that organization teaches. There are organizations that claim to be an accrediting or governing body for the life coaching industry, however no organizations currently hold any legal authority over the field or other organizations.
Find out more information here.
A life coach helps clients:
• Change their thinking
• Increase their emotional wellbeing
• Change limited belief systems
• Reframe past experiences
• Set and achieve goals
• Make life changes
• Increase motivation
• Learn a new skill
• Change their self-identity
A therapist helps clients with these areas of their life, but they also help their patients:
• Diagnose and/or treat mental illness or clinical anxiety or depression
• Heal past trauma
• Cope with traumatic loss
• Cope with abuse
• Treat addiction or substance abuse
• Cope with relationship turmoil or violence
For additional detail about the boundaries between life coaching and therapy or related fields, click here.
We sure do! We are accredited by the CPD (Continuing Professional Development) Standards Office (http://cpdstandards.com/), which allows our students to earn CEU (continuing education units) or CPD (continuing professional development) credits for our programs, if they need them. Our provider number is 20134.
Requirements for CPD/CEU credits and submission guidelines vary, depending on your employer and/or industry. Please check with your employer or association. We cannot guarantee acceptance of our credits.
Credits are available ONLY for courses that have been completed AND have already had proof-of-completion submitted.
There is a $6.99 fee to request CPD/CEU credits, per course.
Instructions for ordering CPD/CEU credits can be found at the END OF YOUR CERTIFICATION COURSE or in your completion email.
(Transformation Academy MEMBERS receive FREE CPD/CEU credits! You can find instructions in the course called Member Resources in your dashboard.)
NOTE: CPD/CEU accreditation is NOT specifically for life coaching. There is no accreditation or requirement of accreditation for life coach training programs or for practicing as a life coach.
No, we are NOT affiliated with ICF (International Coach Federation) or any other life coaching association.
We are an independent Life Coach Training Organization. While ICF provides and important service for the life coaching industry by establishing core standards and best practices, ICF does not hold authority over the life coaching industry, and being “approved” or “accredited” by them is in no way required for any life coach or training program.
The reason we choose not to seek association with ICF is because in order for a coach certification to meet their requirements, it is required to include a certain number of “contact hours”, meaning live interactions between an instructor coach and the student. We do not wish to include contact hours in our programs because we believe our students enjoy the self-paced, virtual nature of our training programs and the opportunity to receive high quality education at a great price. Requiring contact hours with our students would greatly increase the fees we would need to charge for our programs, making them out of reach for many of our students around the world.
We believe in the democratization of education, not creating unnecessary red tape and costs.
Find out more information here.
Life coaching is a non-regulated industry, so there is no license or degree required. There exists no official accrediting institution or governing body in the life coaching industry. There may be organizations that claim to be an official or legal accrediting body, however this is false.
Therefore, anyone can coach based on their own level of comfort with their chosen training and/or past relevant experience. As long as you are not going outside the scope of coaching, such as practicing therapy (for mental health, for instance) you are free to coach as you wish! It is recommended that any coach who is concerned regarding this matter seek advice from his/her state.
Find out more information here.
General Questions about Courses
We have 5 master-level certifications available, each focusing on a major niche (General, Wellness, Spiritual, Mindset and Transformation).
Each master program includes 4 individual niche certifications. When you complete all 4 certifications in that program, you earn the related Master Certification.
For information about the 4 master programs, view them here: https://store.transformationacademy.com/collections/master-coach-programs
All of our coach certification and training programs are now 100% virtual and self-paced. We have 150,000 students from around the world and can no longer serve everyone through in-person classes.
Our courses are hands on and consist of video-based training with printable worksheets. They are open-enrollment with lifetime access, meaning you can start any time, finish at your own pace, and complete the training from the comfort of your own home (and even in your pajamas!).
In most cases we do not have a payment plan available. However, we do have a membership program that offers access to all courses (based on membership level) for a monthly fee.
Find out more at: https://store.transformationacademy.com/pages/membership
https://store.transformationacademy.com/pages/membership
Our general courses are generally 1 to 5 hours in length, plus self-study time.
Our coach certification programs vary from 15 to 25+ hours each, including video content and time for completing self-study exercises.
Our Master Coach Program takes approximately 65 hours to complete. Once you are enrolled in a course, you have access to it FOR LIFE, so there is no time limit for completion.
Our courses are 100% virtual, consisting of video-based training with printable worksheets, meaning you can finish at your own pace from the comfort of your own home (and even in your pajamas!).
All of our coach certification and training programs are 100% virtual and self-paced. They are hands on and consist of video-based training with printable worksheets.
They are open-enrollment with lifetime access, meaning you can start any time, finish at your own pace, and complete the training from the comfort of your own home (and even in your pajamas!).
Requesting and Ordering Certificates
We sure do! Because printed certifications are only available for courses that have already been 100% completed AND for which you have already received your OFFICIAL CERTIFICATION, we cannot put the link here.
Please see your completion email and/or the certificate instructions lecture at the end of the course you completed for instructions.
(NOTE: if you are a Transformation Academy member, you receive FREE print certificates. Look for “”Member Resources and Certification Instructions” in your dashboard.)
Print certificates can take 1 to 2 weeks to receive for USA addresses and 4 to 8+ weeks for international orders. If your order was placed longer ago than that, please send a message through our contact form.
No problem! First, make an account at SimpleCert (CLICK HERE) — this is where we created your certificate.
Use the same email address you used when requesting your certificate. You will be able to see all of your certificates in one place! If this does not work or you do not see all of your certificates in this account, please submit your request to have your certificate re-sent to you using our contact form.
It can take 48 hours to receive your certificate, and longer on holidays and weekends. Also, please check your spam/marketing box. The emails often hide in there. If it’s been more than 3 days since you submitted your request and the email is NOT in your spam box, please send us a message using our contact form.
If you are taking your course on Transformation Academy’s website, our system will track your progress and you should automatically receive your certification and badge/logo.
If you are taking your course on ANY OTHER website, you must submit a certificate request and proof of completion. Because your process for requesting your certificate depends on what courses you are in and where you took it, we cannot post the link here. When you have completed a certification course, you should receive a completion EMAIL with instructions. Please also see the text LECTURE at the end of your course, where you will find instructions for requesting your official certification and logo.
Troubleshooting
We do not make our video files downloadable through the website directly. However, we do occasionally make exceptions for students with extenuating circumstances, so if you would like to share why you need the files to be downloadable, please submit a request. However, we cannot guarantee it will be approved. We have to protect our intellectual property.
We’re sorry to hear you’re having trouble with a video! If the video is not playing properly, please first try a different device or browser to see if this fixes the problem. If this does not work or if you found an error in a video, please send us a message through our contact form and tell us which COURSE you are in and which LECTURE/VIDEO is giving you trouble. Also, please explain what is happening/not working so we can help you.
EVEN IF you cannot see the PDF file on screen, you should still have a DOWNLOAD BUTTON.
It looks like a down arrow and is in the top right corner.
If you want to be able to see the PDF files on screen, you may need to turn ON the “preview PDF in browser” setting in your browser. If using Firefox, read more here. If using Chrome, update to the newest version of Chrome (click here). If you cannot access the PDF to download at all, please send us a message through our CONTACT FORM.
NOTE: If you are taking your course on any website OTHER THAN Transformation Academy, you will need to contact customer support on that website.
Please double check that you did not create your account using a different email address. (This happens a lot!) If you’re sure your username/email is correct, you can reset your password by clicking “Forgot Password”. Do you have a different question about accessing your content? Please tell us about it through our CONTACT FORM.
NOTE: If you registered for our courses on any website OTHER THAN Transformation Academy, you will not be able to access your course on our website and you will need to log into the website where you purchased the course.
If you are taking your certification course on Transformation Academy’s website, the course will save your progress. However, if you stop a partially finished video and then log on using a different device, it may not remember where you left off.
Look through your course outline to see which lectures are not “checked off” and watch them again. When your course is complete, the system will automatically submit your official certification.
If you are taking your course on ANY OTHER website and are looking to submit proof of completion in order to receive your official certificate and logo/badge, here is what to do… First, you can scan your course and “check off” any lectures that are not showing as complete. This should fix the problem.
If this does not work, you can submit a screen shot of your almost completed course as proof of completion.
Coach Workbooks and Using Course Material
All PDF files for workbook/worksheet activities can be found within the course. We offer printed workbooks, which can be purchased at $7.95 each here: https://transformationacademy.com/workbooks/.
Add any desired workbooks to your cart. Then, check out. (Note: checkout will take place at Amazon.com.)
Our printed workbooks are available for 4 of our courses (Life Purpose, Goals, Happiness and Relationships) and can be purchased at $7.95 each here: https://transformationacademy.com/workbooks/.
Add any desired workbooks to your cart. Then, check out. (Note: checkout will take place at Amazon.com.) All workbook material is also available for free within each course in PDF format, attached as individual activities.
If you are enrolled in a life coach certification program, you are welcome to use the material from the course with one-on-one clients or in group programs or workshops, whether in person or online. You can even use it in an “online program” that you sell only to your own students on your own website.
However, this material is copywritten and you cannot use this material to create and sell an ebook, book, or online course (such as this, meaning a video-based virtual program). Of course, the knowledge itself is not “proprietary”, so you ARE welcome to use what you’ve learned, make it your own, and adjust the activities to meet your need.
You cannot, however, present the content in the same order and wording as our course, and then call it your own course. We all learn what we teach from somewhere, it’s just a matter of making sure we “make it our own” rather than directly using someone else’s material without giving credit for it.
If you are enrolled in a life coach certification program, you are welcome to use the material from the course with one-on-one clients or in group programs or workshops, whether in person or online. You are welcome to customize it or use it verbatim. You are also welcome to add your own name and branding and use it as your own.
The only thing you cannot do is use the content to
a) create a book
b) create an online course (like the one you took with us).
Membership Questions
Our Life Coach Membership is a MONTHLY membership (charged monthly at the same price every month). It gives you FULL access to ALL 80+ of our courses (you get EVERYTHING) including: 30+ niche life coach certifications, Master Coach Certifications, life coaching business courses, 40+ personal development and entrepreneurship courses, free CPD credits and print certificates. If you receive a discount offer, that discount is applied to EVERY month.
If you have a MEMBERSHIP SUBSCRIPTION, look for this in your course dashboard: “Member Resources and Certification Instructions”. If you are enrolled in individual courses, contact us through the Live Chat on our site or send an email to contact@transformationacademy.com. There is a shipping fee, but the certificate will be free.
NOTE: you can ONLY order print copies of certifications you have completed 100%.
If you have a MEMBERSHIP SUBSCRIPTION, look for this in your course dashboard: “Member Resources and Certification Instructions”. If you are enrolled in individual courses, contact us through the Live Chat on our site or send an email to contact@transformationacademy.com. There is a shipping fee, but the certificate will be free.
NOTE: you can ONLY order CPD Credits for certification courses you have completed 100%.
The good news is that all of the courses you took in the other platform are ALSO available in the membership. Unfortunately, they will all show “zero percent” finished because you completed them in the other site. For those courses, you can access the files in either location.
Refund/Cancellation Policy
No problem! Please send a refund/cancellation request through our contact form.
Please send a membership cancellation request through our contact form. Mention that you would like to keep access to the courses that you completed 100%.
Need additional help? Click the CHAT BUTTON in the bottom right corner of the page connect to a live agent OR you can use our traditional CONTACT FORM.