CAN YOU MAKE A LIVING FROM NLP LIFE COACHING?

Can you actually make a living from NLP Life Coaching or is the market already saturated with coaches? And do you have to be an already well-known figure in your chosen field to be valued?

These are very good questions and ones which I was concerned with before starting my NLP Life Coaching career.

I had the decision of whether or not to fork out a lot of money for an online course which promised to give me International Accreditation as both an NLP Master and Life Coach provided I completed all the evaluations and assignments but would that be enough to get me work?

I saw that a lot of people want to be coaches nowadays and I wondered if there were as many clients out there in the market as the coaches looking for work… and was I good enough to be giving other people help when I had my own issues to work on?

I knew there was only one way I was going to find out and that was biting the bullet, doing the course and going for it with all I got.

So that’s what I did and after more than a year doing this I hope that my experiences will help you see the path ahead more clearly if you choose to take it.

When I first finished my course I was giving free sessions to other coaches from the same course who wanted training partners.

This was fantastic practice and a great experience not only as a Coach but also being coached by others. I got to try out all my newly acquired skills without the fear and pressure of having a paying client in front of me.

However, after a while doing this I knew it was time to leave the safety net and go chasing real clients so I made my own Facebook Page for my Coaching services: MLG COACHING.

From this I got a lot of my friends following the page and reading posts I made about the things I’d learnt in NLP and Life Coaching (much like I’m doing with this blog) and also promoted my services as a Coach for anyone who wanted them.

I offered any new client a free 30 minute session but I got no solid requests from anyone!

One of my best friends runs a football website in Mallorca and he offered to lend me a hand by giving me a free AD on his website. I jumped at the chance and made my own website (using a free online website creator called WIX) in just an hour and specifically aimed at the footballers who visit his website.

You can check it out HERE if you want to see what an hour of mucking around on a free website building website can do! (Just remember it’s written in Spanish!)

Again though, despite my optimism, it turned out to be a dead end and I recieved no requests.

So, I went back to the free sessions with the coaches from my course so I could keep getting more experience and gave free sessions to friends and family as well.

This was great and really rewarding, just not financially speaking.

So at this stage if you’d asked me if you can make a living from NLP Life Coaching I would have said it’s very difficult but this actually wasn’t the reason I originally decided to pursue this career…

The reason I did this course in the first place was to learn things for myself to control my mind better and to help my family, especially my 2 year old daughter Danna, so she doesn’t suffer like I did when I was younger from things like being overly sensitive, caring too much about what others thought and feeling like you’re not good enough.

So with this in mind, and feeling like this course gave me those things, anything else really is a bonus but obviously it would be nice to be making money from actually coaching paying clients.
Which led me to think outside the square…

How could I use this knowledge I had to help people? How could I establish myself as an authority on NLP and Personal Development? How could I get myself out there without clients?

And it dawned on me…

Write a book!

Write all the knowledge you’ve learned and you know from experience has worked for you, so that it’s legit, no bulls*&t, and jot it down in a book to help anyone who needs to know this stuff but can’t afford a coach.

So that’s what I did.

The result was my first self-published book on Amazon called “Life Drive Installation”.

This book was an absolute pleasure to write and so easy because it’s something I’m so passionate about and I spoke directly from the heart.

It listed the 20 steps which made the most impact in my life up to that point in getting me in such a good head space and producing some of the most productive work of my life.

I learnt how to self publish and my amazing wife used her creative talents to create the cover and blurb design and I published it in both Ebook and Paperback version.

I promoted it on all my social media (my least favourite part of the process) and people started buying copies…I couldn’t believe it!

When I got my own copy in my hands it was incredible! I can’t describe just how awesome it is to hold your own book in your hands, something you had imagined in your head months ago actually manifesting seemingly out of thin air and into your hands.

It’s magic and I highly recommend that everyone does it at least once in their lives!

Well, in the end I managed to sell a few copies, I didn’t make much money but I still celebrated as if I were Stephen King!

At this point I started to realize that maybe you can potentially make a living from NLP Life Coaching…just not in the one-dimensional way I’d imagined when I first got my qualifications.

I found I really loved writing and so decided to write another book during the quarantine period of Covid-19 titled “Isolation Inspiration” which I wanted to sell for FREE!

I used the stories of two great men, Nelson Mandela and Steven Callahan, to show how being in isolation can make you stronger and can even be a blessing if you have the right mindset.

Amazon however made me charge something for it so I put the price as low as possible (I get about 50 cents for every book sold I think) and also ran a promotion which allowed me to make the book free for a period of time.

This book took off and at the time of writing it has reached over 660 people which for some might not seem like much but for me it is mind blowing to think that many people are reading my work.

I also started writing this blog, decided to learn how to use WordPress to build my own website, bought & read a fantastic book called “From Nothing” which teaches you how to be a succesful blogger and learnt all about SEO (basically how you can rank on the google search engine).

All of this whilst still keeping active in my Facebook page and creating my own Instagram account (@michaellloydgreen) to promote all my stuff.

From this I have managed to reach a lot more people and slowly but surely I’m building a reputation in the world of NLP, Self-help and Personal Development.

I still don’t make a living from NLP Life Coaching but by thinking outside the square I’m building an impressive portfolio and various potential revenue streams which, if I keep at it, will pay off some time down the track I hope.

I 100% don’t regret going down this path and doing the course I did which actually turned out to be the best course I’ve ever done!

It has taught me so much and I not only can help all my friends and family with my NLP skills but also myself when I get a bit off track which happens a fair bit!

It has led to all of these amazing projects which I’m now undertaking and I don’t know where it will all lead but I can say one thing for sure… I’m loving the journey.

From what I’ve seen it seems there are a lot of coaches these days and pretty much all of them follow the road I could easily have gone down which is:

* Complete a Coaching course and get certified
* Expect clients to come in
Nothing….
* Promote your services and even offer free sessions
Nothing….
* Get disheartened and write it off as a failure

If this sounds like what you would do then NLP Life Coaching is not for you and you can save yourself some time and heartache by choosing something you’re willing to dedicate more time to.

If, however, you’re willing to pivot and think outside the square in order to use all the knowledge you will learn by choosing the path of an NLP Life Coach then you can open really cool opportunities for yourself which could lead to greater things down the road.

And in the meantime you can help yourself as well as all your family and friends with the techniques and increased level of consciousness that studying Neuro Linguistic Programming, Life Coaching and Personal Development can give you.

I could easily have written this article and just said “Yeah, you can make a living from NLP Life Coaching, do a course, market yourself and you’ll get clients!” but my goal is to always be truthful with these posts and give you the real facts from my own personal experience so you can decide what is best for you without anyone trying to pull the wool over your eyes.

I hope it has been informative and I truly thank you for taking the time to read this because this article was for you, if you’ve gotten this far then it was meant for you to see it and if you still have any questions, doubts or just wanna chat then feel free to CONTACT me whenever you like.
Good luck with whatever you choose to do in your life but remember the key is to enjoy the journey!

Much love
Mike