Few of the most searched certifications across the globe in current times are ICF Certification, ICF ACC Certification and ICF PCC Certification. For few these might be jargons and for others these might be your career milestones. Today, Life Coaching has become one of the most sought-after professional practices across the world. As the times are evolving, complexities are increasing there’s something that is required that is beyond just gathering of information. Today we are curious to know what stops me from doing what I intend to do irrespective of all the knowledge and information that I possess? Questions like what’s my purpose? What makes me happy? What can I do now that that’s worth an investment of a life time.? How do I get the best out of me? The questions are generic but answers are very personal. Since we all are unique beings with unique lives, therefore standard packed answers or one stop solutions do not serve at all. That’s when the role of a Professional Certification comes to play.
To explore in detail who and what of being a Professional coach, let’s start from the scratch to gain complete clarity on the subject.
What is ICF Certification?
Interestingly, today when we think of professional coaching, the first question that comes to our mind is, what makes this profession as a professional practice? Yes, to make the profession more structured and regulated, we definitely need a certification that adds to our credibility and trust with the clients. ICF Coaching Certification is the certification that is awarded to students who complete their required number of hours of training with an ICF accredited training school. For those of us, who are unfamiliar with the term ICF, ICF stands for International Coaching Federation, which has evolved today as the gold standard body across the globe to credential students as Professional Coaches. Subsequently, people who are interested to start their professional practice or are interested to work as Internal coaches in organizations are required to complete their ACSTH-Approved Coach Specific Training Hours. The number of Hours of Training Required is based on the Level of Credential, that the participant is interested to engage in. To Know More Contact our Team of ICf Certification Experts.
What is ICF ACC Certification and ICF PCC Certification?
As referred above, ICF Certification requires specific number of hours of mandatory professional training as a coach, depending on the level of certification that you are interested to pursue. Although, there are three levels of Credentialing that are offered by ICF-ACC Certification, (i.e., Associate Certified Coach); PCC Certification (i.e., Professional Certified Coach) and MCC Certification, (i.e., Master Certified Coach) yet the students can initially enroll for either for ACC Level Certification or PCC level certification. For MCC Level certification the student is required to practice in good credit standing as a Professional Certified Coach for a minimum of three years before getting into the certification. Depending on the level of Certification that you are interested to pursue, ACC-Certification or PCC-Certification, you are required to complete a minimum of 60 ACSTH (Approved Coach Specific Training Hours) or 125 ACSTH (Approved Coach Specific Training Hours) respectively.
Why Certification?
Another curious question that I constantly keep on receiving is why do I need certification? What can’t I just pursue this profession by saying I’m a Life Coach because that’s what I do. My regular bunch of queries are, I’m a teacher and love helping my students and youth. I keep guiding and counseling them all the while. So, why stops ne from saying I’m a student coach. Or, others who say, I work for a big MNC and have a huge team reporting to me. My job is to help my subordinates, suggest them, guide them what to do and how to do, so that makes me a default experienced coach! Nevertheless, there’s another huge bunch that says I love helping people, connecting with others, supporting them, handholding them, counseling them, advising them, sharing my experiences with them and inspiring people all the time and that’s make me a Professional Coach! Well, the answer to all this is that it makes to a good fit to be a coach but yet not a Professional Certified Coach. To practice as a Professionally qualified Coach, you need to be Certified by a Professional Body like ICF that your clients hold in highest sanctity. That’s where ICF Certification becomes preferential. It helps you to earn the trust and faith of your clients as they know that they are dealing with a highly qualified professional coach.
Why ICF Certification?
That’s the next prominent question that tops my chart of Professional Coaching Questions. ICF was founded in 1995 to give credibility to the emerging coaching profession and in the last 25 years it has become the largest organization for professionally trained coaches and the leading voice for global coaching community. Today, ICF is the most prominent, popular and Gold Standard Body in the coaching world. No wonder, it’s a matter of pride when we associate ourselves as professional coaches with the highest and largest body of Professional Coaches across the globe. As a matter of ICF Certification and Credentialing, gives an instant recognition to the individual irrespective of his/her geographical location and also an opportunity to deal with clients across the globe. The core coaching competencies that define the depth of our coaching education serve as globally standardized basis of coaching education. This is what makes you stand apart from the crowd. ICF Certification is a globally recognized certification that helps you to earn instant trust, credibility and recognition.
Is it worth the Investment?
This is where we reach finally exploring the possibility of putting your information to action. ICF Certifications being internationally recognized are worth the time, effort and money invested. However, there are few important factors to consider before that:
- Is your Training School ICF Accredited? This is one of the most pertinent factors to consider if you intend to launch yourself as a professionally qualified and certified coach. This is what your clients will expect from you. Since ICF is a global standard body, it gives you an opportunity to earn global validation of your certification. This helps you to earn instant credibility and trust from your current and prospective client.
- What are the Standards and Quality of Coach Training? Next important factor that can help you to identify if you can reap the best benefits of your investment is the quality of training imparted by your ICF accredited training school and the ICF credentialing level of your trainer. Next, how your trainer connects and explains you the coaching competencies. How the training is imparted, technologically, knowledge wise, communication wise and of course the experience of the coach trainer in coaching and training students like you. If possible, always urge to get connected with the trainer on a personal level and check of your yourself is you can make a good fit. Afterall, this is one of the most important decisions you intend to take.
- What is the scope of opportunity to put your Learning to Practice? This will help you to make a quick distinction to identify the amount, number, quantity and frequency of peer practice coaching sessions that your training school will help you to get connected during the course of your training. Although most training schools offer this platform only during the regular classroom training hours. How about add-on and continued peer practice initiatives and support system. However very few do provide add-on service and platform to students to work on their peer practice and client practice coaching sessions. This would help you to identify that how far can you expect your training school to support you in your coaching, learning, training and launching as a professional coach.
- What is the Marketing Support? This might be rare, but is one of the most pertinent factors that will help you to work on gaining your returns on investment. Well, I don’t say that those training schools which claim to return your investment by giving you clients are the one’s to trust. Rather, they sound most deceptive, since they expect you something in return and there’s always a catch somewhere. However, few authentic ICF accredited training schools do provide over and above Business Preparation support to their students wherein they empower their students to launch themselves as a professional coach, without being dependent on any outside sources. Those, training schools in my opinion are authentic and trustworthy, since they do not seem to make any false promises.
Conclusion
In a nut shell it appears that Life Coaching as a Professional Field is booming at its peak. People all around seem to need the services of a professional coach who can help them to tap their potential to the fullest. ICF Certification at Level-1 as ACC Certification is good, yet Level-2, PCC Certification is becoming as one of the most sought after international professional certification in coaching at this point of time. By considering the above factors, it seems to give you best possible returns on the investment. Therefore, it’s worth the investment you make both for your yourself and all other who are going to connect with you in your life time.
Would you like to work on your self-developmental skills and make difference to the world? I invite you to join our Life Coaching Training Program at ACC level and PCC level.
This training program is ICF approved and offers 154+ hours of approved coach specific training hours, peer practice coaching, observed coaching and mentor coaching hours and has many exclusive offerings for participants.
New Batches are commencing from
- 23rd April’2024 Online Interactive ICF level-2 Training (PCC Level)
- 25th – 29th April’2024 In-Person 5 Days Fast-Track Interactive ICF level-1 Training (ACC Level)
- 25th April’2024 Online 5 Days Fast-Track Interactive ICF level-1 Training (ACC Level)
- 11th-15th April’2024 (Face to Face 5 Days PCC Level-2 Training Program)
- 4th May’2024 Online Interactive ICF level-1 Training (ACC Level)
I offer trainings both at ACC Level and PCC level that are largely based on PURPOSE Model of Coaching that works truly students to make Transformational Leaps by tapping on their true potential both at Personal and Professional levels.
I have been in this space of learning, training, mentoring and coaching for a long time, (since 2001) and have served many international conglomerates, with resounding success, learning and growing with every experience! I share incredible coaching tools and exercises, intensive coaching library, self-assessment dashboards and toolkit to accelerate your understanding of ICF coaching competencies at each level of ACC and PCC.
I offer trainings on core coaching competencies relating each with real life examples derived from your life, creating opportunities to learn and grow with every moment that we interact. You get an opportunity to put your learnings to practice through extensive practice coaching sessions with your peers and clients and continuous observations to improvise your learnings.