Types of Life Coaching: 7 Top Life Coaching Niches in 2023

Online coaching has gained a lot of popularity in the last couple of years.

In fact, it is one of the fastest growing businesses at the moment. 

Life coaching has always been the most popular coaching niche but in the last few years, it has been further categorised into many different types of coaching. This is not only beneficial for the coach, but the client as well. 

Clients prefer niche specific coaching rather than having a coach who is jack of all trades. 

This is a detailed post about life coaching and its types. We’ll cover the following in this post. 

• What is life coaching
• Types of life coaching 
• Benefits of life coaching
• Top life coaches to follow 
• Qualities of a successful life coach
• Lots more 

As a coach, this post will help you pick a niche and get started with your coaching business. 

What is life coaching?

Life coaching itself is a very broad term and covers everything from physical wellness to career choices. 

What a life coach does is very similar to having a coach as an athlete. The coach helps them identify their strengths and weaknesses, create a strategy, keep them accountable, and ultimately help them achieve their goals. 

Similarly, a life coach follows the same steps and helps you achieve the best that you can in life by keeping you accountable and guiding you towards your aims and goals. 

We will also discuss below, the areas where a life coach can help you with. 

Benefits of life coaching 

Since life coaching covers all areas of life and has several niches, it has numerous benefits. A life coach is likely to excel and help you out in all aspects of life, including:

• Guidance and empowerment
• Improvement in the quality of life
• Boosting confidence, self-worth, and self-esteem
• Improved relationships
• Work-life balance
• Enhancing self-care
• Finding purpose in life
• Grief/stress management
• Food and Diet 
• Helping you with financial matters
• Career and business development
• Developing a well rounded personality 
• Improving mental and physical health 
• Setting realistic goals in life
• Developing empathy towards others
• Enhanced decision making power
• Developing excellent interpersonal skills

These are just a few of the benefits of life coaching quickly summarised, we will go into the details below while discussing the types of life coaching.

Types of life coaching

As mentioned above, life coaching is a very broad term and with the passage of time life coaches have picked specific niches and life coaching has been further divided into the following types. 

Health and wellness coaching

They have an excellent knowledge of diet, nutrition, and lifestyle. A health and wellness coach can help you in the following ways:

• Dealing with a chronic illness
• Physical health and fitness
• Reducing and managing stress
• Trauma, PTSD, and other psychological issues
• Disease management
• Weight management
• Minimizing chances of potential medical illnesses by helping you improve your lifestyle

Best health coach in 2023

Ciara Foy helps high achievers understand their health. By helping them prioritize their internal life and create room for self-care, she gets them on track towards becoming their happiest, healthiest, most successful selves.

Career coaching

Career coaching helps you in getting the support, guidance, and knowledge you need to figure out or reach your career goals. 

A career coach can help you in the following areas:

• Defining your career goals
• Personalized advice and guidance to help you make an informed decision 
• Establishing realistic career goals
• Make a plan and strategies to help you reach your goal
• Providing motivation
• Develop a sense of accountability to keep you on track
• Helping in building a powerful resume/CV
• Preparation for interview 
• Retirement plans and issues

Best career coach in 2023

Katie Smith is a certified executive and career coach with a mission to empower professionals to become more productive in their respective fields and those looking to strengthen their ability to lead and navigate their own careers or business.

Relationship coaching

A relationship coach helps you in dealing with problems regarding your relationships in life. This is not confined to couples only, in fact they deal with all sorts of relationships. 

• Help you overcome communication issue
• Conflicts in a relationship
• Family therapy (Parents and child)
• Resolve different issues that are affecting your relationships such as commitment issues
• Premarital coaching 
• Improve your people skills
• Individuals dealing with divorce or grief

Best relationship coach in 2023

Louis Morris is a relationship coach with the aim of helping people develop healthier and more fulfilling relationships. He is known for being an excellent listener and has been on this coaching journey since for 13 years.

Financial coaching

Financial coaching is for people who struggle with finances, this can be for both, who are struggling to make money and those who have the finances but struggling to manage them.

• Improve money management skills 
• Suggest how to invest 
• Help you recover from debt
• Creating budgets and guiding them to make better decisions
• Keep you accountable 
• Connect you with right people if you’re looking to buy/invest 
• Adopt better financial habits, behaviours, and mindset

Best financial coach in 2023

Jay Rigler is a finance & analytics professional, financial consultant, money coach, financial literacy advocate, and author with 20+ years of experience in this field.

Personal development coaching

Personal development coaches are also famous for writing books on personal development. However, reading a book and hiring a coach for personal development are two very different things, here’s how a personal coach can make a difference in your life. 

• Personality development
• Overcoming fears like public speaking
• Developing a stronger mindset 
• Enhancing self-awareness
• Identifying wrong habits 
• Facilitating in personal goal setting

Best personal development coach in 2023

Jay Shetty is an award-winning storyteller, podcaster and former monk, and now one of the most popular personal development coach who has also written multiple best selling books. He now has an academy for personal development as well.

Mental health coaching

Mental health coaching has now become a separate coaching on its own, however, even today many life coaches also deal with mental health challenges. Here’s how a mental health coach help you:

• Dealing with overwhelming emotions like anger, grief, and conflict
• Helping you manage stress
• Overcoming anger issues
• Identifying mental illnesses like anxiety, depression, and other personality disorders 
• Help you find a sense of purpose and belonging
• Helping you deal with everyday anxiety 
• Stabilising mood swings
• Developing a stronger mindset 

Best mental health coach in 2023

Elisabeth Corey is the founder of Beating Trauma.  Her mission is to bring awareness to the world about the impact of trauma, how it is running lives, and how to overcome trauma to lead in every aspect of your life.

Fitness coaching

Fitness coaching is for people who are looking to improve their health and fitness through diet and exercise. 

• Identifying your fitness needs
• Develop an exercise program according to your needs
• Keep you accountable 
• Provide a suitable diet based on nutrition 
• Help you achieve your fitness goals
• Improve everyday habits 
• Help with setting a routine and following it 

Best fitness coach in 2023

Mark Sisson is one of the most experienced and popular health and fitness coach. Moreover, he has coached hundreds of professional athletes to success. And has an entire institute devoted for health and fitness.

Qualities of a successful life coach

Today, in the age of knowledge, almost anyone can call themselves a coach. However, there are certain qualities that all successful life coaches possess. 

There is a difference between being a life coach and being a successful life coach. Let’s quickly review the qualities you must have to become a successful life coach. 

Qualification

Everyone is calling themself a life coach these days, and there is no right or wrong when it comes to being a coach. Similarly, there are multiple bodies providing certifications that you can take to become a certified life coach. 

But what really matters is where you’re getting your qualification from. If you want reassurance that you are working with a qualified coach, it is recommended that they are certified from the International Coaching Federation (ICF). 

Similarly, there are other authentic venues as well, for example, if your relationship coach has a degree in psychology, they will be an excellent coach.

Niche specific 

Another great quality about all successful coaches is that they are niche specific. We have already discussed multiple different niches of a life coach. 

For example, if you go to a fitness coach to achieve your fitness goals, they will probably be the best for you rather than going to a life coach that covers everything from career to relationships and health and wellness. 

Likewise, a coach who has expertise in career coaching can guide you better in your career development than a coach who specialises in mental health. 

Expert in their field

You will hardly find a successful life coach working with everyone. They pick their niche, and get all their experience and expertise in that. A coach who has 10 years of experience in family counselling will be more successful than a coach who has 10 years of experience in multiple niches. 

This also helps to develop trust and confidence with new clients, having a good rapport in a certain niche will make the client more comfortable in reaching out to you. 

Clear offering

All highly successful coaches have a clear coaching offer. For instance, they have 3-5 packages that you can sign up for. 

On the other hand, some coaches don’t have a clear offer and have multiple programs which often confuses the clients and they end up losing business to those who have a clear offer. 

Lifelong learners

All successful coaches are lifelong learners, even though they are already “successful”. 

They are constantly learning how to improve their:

• Communication skills
• Coaching programs
• Knowledge
• Offers 
• Marketing
• Coaching methods 

A lifelong learning mindset is the difference between a good and a great coach.

Top 10 coaches to follow in 2023

Whether you’re looking to find a coach to work with or a coach looking to accelerate their coaching career, it is important to keep an eye on the top coaches in your industry. 

As a coach there is so much you can learn from them, what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, their offers, marketing strategies, and a lot more. 

If you’re looking to hire a coach, here’s a great coaching directory that can help you choose the right one for you.

There are so many brilliant coaches out there, however, we have shortlisted the top 10 coaches you must follow in 2023. 

Mel Noakes is a life coach with a goal to empower women and help them embrace themselves as they are. She helps them maintain a balance between their career, health, and happiness.

Dan Magena is a successful and motivational life coach. Moreover, he is a published author, international speaker, and promoter of entrepreneurial philanthropy.

Gabby is one of the New York Times bestselling authors, an international speaker, and a spiritual life coach. She is on a mission to make meditation easily available for everyone.

Marshall Goldsmith is one of the biggest names in the coaching industry; apart from being a business coach, he has expertise in leadership, executive and life coaching as well.

Dr Joanna Martin is a visionary, coach, and activist. Her work knows no geographical boundaries. She is also an internationally acclaimed and award-winning speaker.

Tony Robbins is an entrepreneur, bestselling author, and the nation’s #1 life & business coach. In addition, he has empowered more than 50 million people from over 95 countries.

Robin Sharma is considered to be one of the top 5 life and leadership experts in the world as well as an internationally acclaimed bestselling author.

Cortney McDermott is an award-winning author, TEDx speaker, and business & life strategist and coach who helps the world’s leading organizations and creatives.

Maria Marlowe is a certified wellness coach and a nutritionist. Her mission is to help people utilize food as medicine to overcome all the health problems they are facing. 

Liz Carlie is the CEO of Motherhood Unstressed. Being an author, TEDx speaker, and host, she is also an advocate of self-care, especially for mothers.

Conclusion

I hope this post gave you an in-depth knowledge of types of life coaching, benefits, and top life coaches.

Choosing the right life coach is as equally important as choosing the right coaching niche.

And now finally I’d like to hear from you:

Who’s your favorite life coach from the above top ten list?

Feel free to leave a comment below.

Also, if you’re looking to start your own life coaching business, get in touch with us now!