Be responsible with the advice you give

Being a life coach is not just any profession, without being a personal health professional, our mission is focused on elements of high sensitivity, which impact significantly on the personal and professional development of those who trust us. Life coaching must be developed under a strict adherence to ethics, humanism and responsibility. A bad decision on our part can cause problems of great magnitude for the life of our clients, that is why there are a number of factors that we must take into account before providing advice, strategy or action to follow.

During the development of this guide we will be addressing some of the basic aspects that you should take into account before giving advice to your clients, so that you can maintain the greatest possible responsibility with the decisions you make and the indications you give.

When in doubt it is better not to act

The coach, as a human being, also suffers from doubts and insecurities, no matter how well prepared he is in his field. These doubts are a reflection of the absence of certain knowledge regarding a specific fact. The best way to understand how we should act in the presence of doubts is to think as a doctor does. It is inadmissible the idea that a doctor would take the risk of orienting a treatment if he is not sure of the diagnosis he has made.

As the doctor himself does not take any action with his patient until he has a clear diagnosis, you should limit your recommendations until you understand the exact dimension of the problem you are dealing with and the profile of the client you are dealing with. This is why it is recommended that you delve deeply enough into the client during the discovery sessions. These sessions are to the coach what a diagnosis is to the doctor. Guiding wrong advice and actions is worse than stopping and taking enough time to develop strategies that are consistent with the problem we are dealing with.

If the problem exceeds your capabilities, reject it.

We must be humble enough to recognize when a client comes to us with a problem that exceeds our capabilities. If we know in advance that we are not sufficiently prepared to contribute to the satisfaction of the client's interests, we should reject the case without hesitation.

It is unethical on our part to accept a client if we are not going to provide value for the payment that will be made in our services, worse than what we have just mentioned, is to risk to guide a series of actions without any certainty that they will be beneficial to you, as this could trigger unwanted adverse effects, further damaging the current state of the client.

Perform an adequate follow-up of the advice you give.

To make mistakes is human, we can all do it regardless of the profession we perform. That is why you should always be prepared to correct a strategy if the situation warrants it. Once you give advice, you cannot disengage from the case without knowing the real effects it has had on your client. Try to adequately follow up on each of the orientations you give to evaluate if they should be corrected, complemented with others, or if they are indeed correct for the objectives you are pursuing.

Following up on the actions proposed to the client is a sign of responsibility and respect for your work, which will be well perceived by your clientele.