A friend was told she should get into life coaching – because it’s a growing field, and there’s money in it. So she suggested I should look into it too. Because the situation’s still precarious, and we’re all racking our brains for ways to make ends meet come 2021.

And so I looked online, trying to find an answer to the basic question: what the heck is life coaching?

According to Wikipedia

Life coaching is the process of helping people identify and achieve personal goals through developing skills and attitudes that lead to self-empowerment. Life coaching generally deals with issues such as work–life balance and career changes, and often occurs outside the workplace setting.

Get into it a little deeper, and it’s basically, you tell me what you want, we talk about how you think ypou might get it, I encourage you on and work as a sounding board.

And now I don’t want to sound too critical or too cynical, because anything that floats your boat is fine – and sometimes we need someone to point us in the right direction, but… is this something I can improvise?
Do I just need some stationery and a calling card?
Hi, I’m your life coach?

And believe it or not, here where I live, in t his small 600-people village I’m sitting in, lost in the hills of Astigianistan, we do have a Life Coach, a psychologist with an office on the City Hall Square. But, right, she’s got a degree in psychology. That at least gives you some degree of security…

What could I coach about?
How I repeatedly crawled out of disastrous situations, always managing to survive in an increasingly minimalist, “unsuccessful” way? Because by the standards through which success is measured in our civilization, my trajectory is one that slowly (thankfully) but steadily spirals downward.
I make today about one quarter of what I made when I was a university researcher, I no longer have a car and it’s been ages since I took a vacation.
I’m seriously considering whether to spend 25 bucks to buy myself a Christmas gift, and as much to buy one for my brother.

Could I honestly present myself as a guru of some kind, and tell a third party how to go from A to B in a successful way?
Even just help them along might require specific skills I have no certification of any kind in.

But indeed it’s a growing market, and Google provided me with an ample selection of examples – mostly guys that have a Youtube channel.
Mostly appear scarily unqualified – but once again, maybe it’s just me, being cynical.

Anyway – it’s back to the drawing board.
I will not be a life coach, because I can barely coach myself…