For every problem in life nowadays, there's a coach ready to guide you up and out. Money. Nutrition. Your relationship. Your career. Your side hustle. Your, um, life coach.
And while there are varying degrees of legitimacy across the coaching services on the marketplace today, the "life coach" has become more than a punchline or a mysteriously lucrative job market that seems to exist primarily in LA. In an era some have called "improving ourselves to death," a widely discussed 2018 New Yorker essay on the subject noted that hiring a personal optimization guide to address any and every facet of your life has only gotten more popular.
It shouldn't come as much of a surprise. As traditional models of psychotherapy have come under scrutiny in recent years, and plenty has been written about the medical system's failure to meet the nuanced realities of mental and emotional health, the Tim Ferriss-style optimization of one's life, often via a life coach, has been steadily on the rise.
While that correlation isn't necessarily causation, the prevailing trend still leans hard into efficiency, organization, and productivity as a coping mechanism, so much so that the global coaching industry was valued at $5.34 billion in 2025, according to the ICF Global Coaching Study, up from roughly $2 billion just over a decade earlier.
"When traditional therapy patients find they aren't moving forward into action, they will often seek out a coach," notes Avery Roth, a career change coach based in NYC, adding that one of the primary reasons is that "therapy focuses on healing past issues, whereas coaching focuses on implementing changes to create a new future."
But here's the rub: there's still no single regulating body imposing oversight across the life coach industry, and when "experts" are self-anointed, there's real potential to do damage. Scroll through the millions of posts under the Instagram hashtag #lifecoach, and it's not hard to see that many participants are focused on growing their audience, building affiliate marketing programs, and ultimately following the dollar signs toward a career of their own design, something they'll teach you too, if only you'd buy this three-week session on sale for a limited time.
A few years ago, I very nearly took the advice of a coach who told me they had "a very strong instinct" that I should leave my entire life behind and move within the next two weeks. During an intro call with a different coach, I was told I had to decide right then whether we'd work together and pay over the phone. With no real thought as to whether this particular coach might actually be a good fit, I made the clumsy decision to pay right away. The slick sales tactic foreshadowed major clashes we'd have later.
In another questionable encounter, a fairly intimate conversation I'd had with a coach was eventually used as marketing fodder on an Instagram Live. My name wasn't shared, but it was jarring to see the fruits of our sessions turned into content. Technically, coaches have the right to share this kind of thing. There's no HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) form to fill out that protects your privacy unless a coach chooses to use one of their own accord.
Trust me, I'm a #lifecoach
While many coaches undergo some type of training, there's nothing stopping anyone from sliding "coach" into their Instagram bio or LinkedIn. There's no standard signifier indicating training, education, and certification, the way MD signals a doctor or LCSW signals a social worker, and it's a problem even the most sought-after coaches in the industry acknowledge.
The International Coaching Federation (ICF), founded in 1995 and rebranded from "International Coach Federation" in 2020, grants coaching programs accreditation and now represents more than 50,000 credential holders in 140-plus countries. Its site lists financial reports and ethics guidelines, and it's developed standards allowing programs to become ACTPs, Accredited Coach Training Programs. Some of the "core competencies" the ICF requires are "coaching presence" and "powerful questioning," subjective matters, to be sure.
While a therapist logs hours amounting to months and years in a clinic, many people complete coaching certification programs that last weeks, or even hours, or skip certification entirely. This lack of oversight shapes not just the quality of service clients get, but the business side too. In 2016, a class-action lawsuit accused a Colorado couple of running a life-coaching Ponzi scheme, with plaintiffs seeking $30 million in damages.
More recently, the stakes of that lack of oversight became impossible to ignore. Jodi Hildebrandt, a licensed clinical mental health counselor who rebranded herself as a life coach and dropped the word "therapist" from her business, was convicted alongside former family vlogger Ruby Franke on child abuse charges.
One former client said Hildebrandt described becoming a life coach as a way to get around the ethical rules therapists are required to follow. The case prompted Utah to pass a law in 2025 making it easier for regulators to cite and fine life coaches who treat mental health conditions without a license. The law stops short of requiring a life coaching license or setting minimum standards for the industry, but it's one of the first concrete legislative responses to a problem coaches, clients, and journalists had been flagging for years.
For newly minted coach Catherine Pao, the choice to get certified through the Coaches Training Institute (CTI), one of the oldest certification programs on the market, was critical to her decision to become a coach. Her training involved receiving feedback from "being in triads, having others observe your coaching, and one-on-one supervisions with a master coach," feedback she considers the "most valuable input."
Even for Pao, the lack of regulation and clarity around what constitutes trustworthy certification is frustrating: "I wish there was some U.S. News and World Report on choosing coaching certification programs."
The Tricky Business of Vetting a Life Coach
When it comes to finding the life coach who's going to unlock the hidden potential bubbling inside of you, for Erica Ariel Fox, leadership expert and author of the New York Times bestselling self-improvement book Winning From Within, it's less about statistics and more about a feeling: "It's not about what they say, or the advice they give you. It's about the quality of their presence, and the feeling inside you when you're with them," she says.
It's this search for the je ne sais quoi that is simultaneously the most appealing and most dangerous part of hiring a life coach. Solutions for quite literally any problem area of your life can be filtered through the lens of life coaching, and when you find a compatible match, it can feel like divine intervention.
Not every potential client is rushing to unpack their most serious trauma, and general consensus among established coaches holds that this isn't, and shouldn't be, a life coach's area of expertise. But the stakes run high when issues typically handled by a highly trained mental health professional land in the hands of an undertrained "expert," which is exactly what the Hildebrandt case made painfully clear.
Fox suggests sitting in on an introductory call with a coach and asking yourself, "Is this conversation pulling me toward a deeper part of myself? From your inner wisdom, you'll know the answer," she says.
Others recommend asking for more concrete evidence. Coach and business advisor Silvia Christmann suggests asking to see some numbers: "If they can show you demonstrated results, then you can better decide if you should work with them." Not every aspect of a coach's work is quantifiable, but the number of people they've worked with is a good place to start, along with asking for references or testimonials from past clients, a step worth taking with any professional you're considering hiring.
For Tillie Eze, a blogger and house manager in New York City, a wholly positive experience with a coach was a no-brainer investment in herself: "I think about all the money I spend on other people, and on trivial matters, and can't justify spending that money on drastically altering my life for the better."
Months after starting work with her coach, Tillie was still at it and pleased with the process of establishing structure through a "game plan." She cites her coach helping her stay accountable as one of the biggest benefits, and when things don't go as planned, they discuss "how and why things didn't pan out the way we had discussed."
All of which is to say that seeking answers outside traditional establishments isn't harmful by default, and clearly, the growing popularity of these services speaks to a real need in the marketplace.
But between the money involved and cases like Hildebrandt's showing exactly what can go wrong when there's no floor under a profession, a little due diligence goes a long way, whether that means checking for real credentials, asking for references, or simply making sure your professional and personal struggles don't end up as content on an aspiring #lifecoach's Instagram Stories.
No one's checking a coach's credentials but you. Get the Girlboss Daily for more on vetting the people you pay to guide your life and career.
