Most people struggle when looking to start their own career coaching practice. Knowing where to begin and what direction to head in can feel overwhelming. It helps if you create a vision of exactly what you desire for a successful business. You probably have an idea of what

you would like to be doing but honing that vision and making it reality takes some effort.

Start with the raw materials of what makes you unique

Reflecting on your skills, values, strengths and abilities will help you identify the areas where you need more support. For Instance, maybe you are really great at brainstorming new career options for someone but you need help building your website or marketing your

business. By gaining a better understanding of who you are, you will then be able to answer questions like, what do I need to get started? Does this vision fit into my ideal work/life balance? And, how can this work utilize my strengths and minimize the tasks that make me frustrated or that are tedious to me?

Mastering self-reflection work can help develop a vision of your career coaching practice.

Strengths & Challenges

Knowing your strengths can be one of the most difficult yet useful components of the business design process. It can help you avoid burnout. What are your top strengths? Make a list and keep adding to this list as you discover or uncover additional skills and preferences.

Understanding your challenges is also useful for similar reasons. If you are thinking of a private practice that requires attention to detail while you’re a big picture thinker, this would be a potential problem area where you might use technology or additional support to meet your goals. What are tasks, skills, or activities that you find challenging or don’t like doing?

Create your Ideal Day

Designing your life, being the architect of your reality, is not just about doing work that you’re passionate about. It is also about how you live your life, every day. That’s why this step is about visioning your ideal work day.

Imagine waking up, feeling rested and excited for the day. What are your morning routines? Do you spend some time getting centered or getting exercise?

Imagine your commute. How long is it? Imagine your work environment. Do you work in an office or from home? Imagine all the tools necessary to do your job and imagine where they are so that you can work comfortably and efficiently. Now, think about what you do during the day. Are you interacting with people virtually or in-person? 

Now, imagine when work ends for you. What do you do after work? Remember, this is an ideal day. Next, imagine yourself getting ready for bed, reflecting on your day. What was the most significant? Now, you’re getting into bed, feeling pleasantly tired, ready to sleep, but also looking forward to the next day. 

Take into account what your balanced life looks like

How does your job fit into the rest of your life? Are you a natural workaholic when you have an all-consuming project or do you want to make sure you have plenty of time to hang out with family and friends? This is an important thing to figure out now because your perfect job could become your perfect prison if it crowds out your health and social life. You want to honor all aspects of yourself, not just the part that earns an income. So, take a moment now to look at what you want your life to look like as a whole. The best way to do that is with a pie chart (And who doesn’t love pie?!) 

Draw a circle. If you sleep eight hours a day, draw a pie slice about one-third of the total, a little more or less if you feel well-rested with a little more or less sleep. Then, make a list of the activities that are important for you to have a well-balanced and fulfilling life. Examples include, work , family, friends, exercise, self-care, fun, communing with nature, traveling, reading, learning, or anything else that’s important to you.

Once you have your list, fill in the rest of your pie chart with the percentage of time you’d like each category to be. You can think of this in reference to a day, week, month, or year.

Now that you’ve thought about your ideal day and what a balanced life looks like you can begin to ask salient questions like: what kind of practice do I want? What value do I provide my clients? Which of their needs am I meeting? How much income do you want? What kinds of clients do you want to work with?

Reach out and connect with comprehensive resources

Internet searches only take you so far and the old saying “You don’t know what you don’t know” should be taken to heart. Begin your career coaching exploration with the Empowered Entrepreneur Program. It is an eight-week course that covers every aspect of starting your career coaching business. Everything from designing a practice around your strengths, a coaching approach to marketing your services, resources to build your website, logistics of setting up your practice and access to a community of like-minded career coaches with support from instructors that have their own successful practices.

Click here to learn more about the Empowered Entrepreneur program or how to register for the classes.

Update! Our Empowered Entrepreneurs Program (EEP) has been renamed to Kickstart Your Private Practice (KYPP).