How do I choose the best coach for me?

Over the years of working as a creative living coach and business coach, I’ve found there are common themes that emerge when working with clients who truly flourish with our time together. Not every coach is right for every client. I thought it might be helpful to share some practical tips so you can choose the best creative business or life coach for you.

Be Your Coach’s Ideal Client

When you are connecting with your prospective coach, see if you can find out more about who their ideal client is. They will have certain types of people they work best with. For example, I love to work with people who want to create more in their businesses or lives.

My clients are people who feel more fulfilled when they are being creative and tend to feel like something’s missing with purely traditional forms of success. They want to develop their gifts and often have a desire to be of service in their communities. While they may not think of themselves as artists, they are all creative in some way, even if it’s been years since they cultivated their creativity. You can read more about my ideal clients here.

Choose a Coach Whose Values Align with Your Own

When choosing a coach, be mindful of their values, how they define success, and what kind of lifestyle they choose for themselves. When you find a coach who shares similar values to you, they are more likely to understand and validate why certain things are important to you. They can share experiences, tools or practices that will shortcut your learning curve as you are travelling a similar path.

My top values are authenticity, integrity, connection, contribution, variety, and of course, creativity. By researching your prospective coach and looking through their online presence or listening to their podcasts, you’ll likely begin to get a feel for what is important to them and see if your values align.

On the other hand, if you are looking for a coach with a more ‘boot camp’ style of coaching, I’m not the coach for you. I am not the type of coach who will whip you into shape and demand you to take action when you need to rest, reflect or pivot. However, if you’re looking for someone who will help you ask the big questions so you can be deeply aligned and anchored, keep showing up, doing what you feel called to do and taking action in alignment with your heart, dreams and values, then we might be a great match.

The important thing is to consider how you work best, what kind of accountability or support you flourish with, and then choose a coach that meets your needs.

Choose a Package That Supports You Best

Set Packages or Tailor-Made Bespoke Packages

Creative coaches and business coaches usually offer structured packages, meaning you’ll choose a set number of coaching sessions to be held over a certain period of time. I offer hand-tailored packages where, after our initial session, I customise a package that will support your desired outcomes.

Frequency of Sessions

Consider if you’d like to meet with your coach weekly, fortnightly, monthly or even less frequently than that. You may also feel you would be best supported with more regular calls in the beginning, and then as you find momentum, like to space the sessions out and make use of the ongoing email support between times.

Private or Group Coaching Options

It’s also helpful to consider whether you want to work one-on-one with your coach, or if a group program would better suit you. Group programs have the benefit of helping you to build connections with other like-minded people who are sharing a similar journey. Group coaching programs are often priced lower than private coaching, which may make it possible to work with your preferred coach.

If you are a very private person, or you know you flourish one-on-one, then private coaching will likely be best for you.

In my case, new clients often like to connect fortnightly as they are beginning to shape the life or business they want. As they begin to find momentum, they may choose to meet every three weeks, monthly or in the case of some long-term clients, even less frequently than that. I offer different private packages, group coaching programs, in-person retreats and even a monthly membership program so as to make working with me accessible for different stages of your journey and particular situation. I’m happy to explore which of these options would serve you best when we connect on your initial call.

Creative Coaching Fees

Creative coaching fees vary enormously in Australia and worldwide, so it can be confusing to figure out what you should be paying. Coaching fees can begin as low as $150 and can go up to tens of thousands of dollars for a complete, comprehensive package. Many coaches work on a sliding scale where you will receive a discount per session when you choose a longer package.

I recommend choosing your coach based on how well they fit with your needs, the experiences they’ve had in your area of desired growth, and the connection you feel with them, rather than basing your decision purely on their coaching rate. If you find a coach that’s a great fit for you, then you’ll short-cut your learning, expedite your growth and likely need fewer sessions as you’ll get great value from your work together.

Explore this page, Is Coaching Worth the Investment? if you are wondering how you can be sure whether you’re making a wise decision when you choose a coach.

Read Client Stories & Reviews

A coach will often share client testimonials and reviews from people they have worked with on their website. Read through the reviews and look for words, phrases and outcomes that really resonate with you. You may also find they share podcast episodes featuring past clients, and these can give you a great insight into the work they did together. You’ll gather information about how the client found the experience of working with that coach and how their life or business has shifted as a result.

Notice if Your Inner Critic Begins to Talk You Out of Following Your Heart

Choosing to work with a coach can bring up all our usual self-doubts and fears, stirred up by our inner critic.

Perhaps you have an initial conversation with a coach who you really resonate with and whose style complements what you want to experience and cultivate in your life. When you get off the call, you are excited about working with them. Be aware that your inner critic may be woken from its slumber when you are on the threshold of trying something new and stepping into the unknown.

Your inner critic may come up with a range of plausible-sounding reasons not to proceed.

Here are a few things to be mindful of:

Believing coaching is unaffordable or too expensive. Perhaps this is the case in your current situation, but it may not always be so. Is there a way you could generate the money needed to support your growth? And perhaps you have the money, but your inner critic is still jumping up and down. We can feel uncomfortable investing in ourselves in this way. In order to hear the still small voice inside you, instead of the inner critic’s loud fears, it may be worth following some of the prompts on this page to help weigh up the value you will receive, and also explore what it will cost you if things don’t change.
Worrying about money to the point of indecision. We all have our own relationship with money. Working with a coach who has a healthy relationship with money can help you to shift old patterns and expand what you experience as possible, for you. The best coach for you may offer tools, practices, frameworks and beliefs that will support you in deepening your relationship with money so it becomes more supportive, mindful, mature and even abundant.
Believing you should be able to figure it out alone. Perhaps you work best on your own, if so, then trust that. Or perhaps, and if you are considering coaching it’s likely, you would benefit from finding support for your dreams. I’ve seen and experienced how coaching can truly nurture and expedite the growth process. We don’t know what we don’t know, and working with a coach who’s travelled the path you are choosing and worked with multiple clients in similar situations can save you years of trial and error.
Allowing someone else to talk you out of it. Perhaps the people close to you want the best for you, and they may feel a responsibility to protect you from change or save you from something that might be a bit challenging. Or perhaps people close to you aren’t exactly supportive or you don’t have a network you can rely on. Remember, you are the expert on yourself. If you really desire something, emotionally healthy people who love and support you will want to see you grow, flourish and follow your dreams. Even if it takes a little time for them to see the value and how it leads you to greater fulfilment and joy.
Thinking that now isn’t the right time. Trusting the timing of your life is an art and a mindful practice. I don’t believe in striving or putting yourself under enormous, undue pressure. And trusting your own path is wise. However, it’s worth getting curious and considering whether coaching might actually support you in developing skills and practices that help you navigate this season of your life - while also moving towards your heart’s desires. The time is going to pass whether you work with a coach or not. If you prioritised a couple of hours a fortnight, how much further ahead could you be in six months or a year, than if you put off taking action ‘until things settle down.’ Our inner critic can be clever in convincing us we are choosing the safe and secure path, when in fact that path isn’t leading us anywhere near our dreams. Use your discernment and follow what lights you up (even if it feels a little scary - see the point below.)
Deciding it feels too outside your comfort zone. A major prerequisite for intentionally shaping your life, making more money, or cultivating your dream, is the willingness to be uncomfortable. It is a good sign. It means you’re shifting a pattern. You can choose to stay with yourself through the discomfort, and take action anyway. As you do, what was once outside your comfort zone will become your new normal and you’ll have the fulfilment of being the captain of your own ship. You can point your life in the direction you want to go and say ‘yes’ to your heart’s desires calling you forward.

Trust Your Gut as well as Your Head

One of the best pieces of advice I can share is to trust your intuition. Pause and get curious about how you are feeling in your own body when you think about working with that coach. Do you feel tingles of excitement? Does it feel like a solid ‘knowing’ that feels stable in your belly? How do you usually connect with your intuition? Use those tools and practices to help you make the best decision for you.

You’ll know when you’ve found the best creative coach for you. Your intuition will tell you.

It’s all About the Connection

From my experience, this is the most important part.

When you truly connect with your coach and trust them, you can feel safe to share from your heart. Sometimes coaching is vulnerable work, and having a strong connection and resonance with your coach will mean you will get the most out of the coaching experience. Your chosen coach, therefore, needs to be someone you feel comfortable opening up to and who you resonate with.