Certificate in
Life Coaching
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Balancing careers, relationships, and day-to-day responsibilities can be challenging and overwhelming in today’s fast-paced lifestyles. An increasing number of high-performing individuals are choosing to engage the services of a trained professional Life Coach to help them clarify goals and keep focused on overcoming obstacles that are inhibiting their capacity to achieve them.
Coaching is a dynamic, effective, and evidence-based method for empowering individuals to realize their personal and professional potential. In Life Coaching, the partnership between client and coach catalyzes a thoughtful, interactive, and creative process that facilitates movement towards the client’s goals.
In this certificate, offered by the MA in Consciousness and Transformative Studies program and designed in accordance with the standards of the International Coaching Federation (ICF), students learn coaching theory and applied coaching skills, supplemented by additional knowledge and practices in emotional intelligence, social intelligence, human development, and entrepreneurship, thereby preparing them to launch a holistic life coaching business. The certificate is oriented toward mastery of the core coaching competencies as identified by the ICF, which is the gold standard in the coaching profession: setting the foundation, co-creating the relationship, communicating effectively, and facilitating client learning and growth.
National University’s Life Coaching program is currently under review to meet the ICF standards and requirements of a leveled accreditation program. Our certificate program is designed to provide you with an understanding of the coaching process and to help you develop fundamental coaching skills in accordance with the ICF Core Competencies. You’ll learn how to coach from an integral perspective that engages the complexity and potential of the whole person — mind, body, heart, and spirit — in order to develop effective and trusted relationships to create meaningful and sustainable change in clients’ lives.
Our curriculum offers a holistic approach to cultivating the core competencies established by the ICF. Accordingly, in this program, you’ll learn compassionate communication based on awareness, empathy, and active listening. You’ll learn how to co-create trusting and safe coaching relationships rooted in presence, compassion, and responsibility and to foster holistic learning, growth, and transformation. Finally, you’ll be prepared to embody a client-centered mindset that’s open, curious, and flexible as you learn to build a coaching practice grounded in ethics and integrity.
The Life Coaching Certificate is a stand-alone certificate and can be completed in 9 months of half-time study, for a total of 15 quarter units. Graduating from an ICF-approved coach training program supports the process of becoming an ICF-certified coach.
The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) accredits public and private schools, colleges, and universities in the U.S.
Course Details
The courses in the Coaching Certificate include 150 hours of study across 15 units. The course track is as follows:
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The demand for coaching is ever increasing to meet the challenges of living in today’s complex world. Discover what is needed to develop an effective and trusted coaching relationship that creates meaningful and sustainable change. The focus of this course will be on understanding the coaching process and developing basic coaching competencies by engaging the complexity and potential of the whole person.
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Discover what is needed to develop an effective and trusted coaching relationship that creates meaningful and sustainable change. Learn how to coach from an integral perspective that engages an individual’s physical, psychological, and spiritual complexity to develop basic coaching competencies. The course, which includes practical training, focuses on understanding the coaching process.
Course Learning Outcomes:
- Establish an effective coaching agreement
- Demonstrate coaching presence
- Consider and apply core competencies in coaching
- Coach effectively in a manner that embodies core competency requirements and utilizes appropriate coaching concepts and tools
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This course weaves together and synthesizes the material from all prior coaching courses to foster a deeper understanding of the integral coaching process, at the center of which is an orientation toward growth. Students will explore the deeper dimensions of integral coaching in practice sequences and reach a solid level of coaching proficiency.
At the end of this course, students will be able to demonstrate integral coaching skills and fulfill the requirements of the Life Coaching Certificate.
Course Learning Outcomes:
- Understand the arc of coaching
- Demonstrate coaching presence and coaching proficiency
- Coach effectively in a manner that embodies core competency requirements and utilizes appropriate coaching concepts and tools
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This course introduces you to the most relevant theories behind coaching. It addresses human development, differences in how we learn, the role and limitation of willpower, and relevant major theories of change in individuals and work groups. Students continue to practice coaching and work with a practice partner or coachee.
The goal of this course is to deepen your coaching and to become more skilled in understanding where your coachee is in their development so that you can more successfully guide them to fulfill their potential. This course includes practical training.
Course Learning Outcomes:
- Understand the change process in individuals and groups
- Consider complexities and hidden agendas
- Uncover hidden agendas when coaching a client
- Coach effectively, guiding through change and navigating resistance to change successfully
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Starting one’s own business affords the opportunity to infuse one’s work with consciousness principles and systems change. For those considering opening a practice as a consultant, coach, therapist or body worker, or developing any type of new startup company, this course examines the basics needed to turn a great idea into a business reality.
This course honors the holistic framework within the context of starting a business and considers the mind, body and spirit as contributing equally to our work in the world. Among the topics covered are: analyzing life values and priorities; determining business goals and strategies; launching and managing the business; building financial success; and marketing products and services
Course Learning Outcomes:
- Identify and evaluate small business opportunities and rewards
- Understand the characteristics and competencies of an entrepreneur and how it lends to creativity, opportunity, and feasibility of launching a business
- Ability to develop and articulate a strategic vision that connects with customers and investors through business planning, pitching, and marketing
- Finance and account strategies designed to project, evaluate, generate, and manage monetary resources
- Recognizing the legal and ethical challenges of small business management
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This course focuses on emotional intelligence—the capacity to recognize, understand, regulate, and creatively channel the wisdom and energy of emotional experience, as well as to empathize and relate to others’ emotions. Students learn what emotions are and how they arise physiologically, experientially, and behaviorally. A phenomenological approach enables students to connect with and describe emotions in order to enter more directly into the multilayered, visceral experience of their emotional lives.
The practice of mindfulness allows students to observe, track, and comprehend their experience with openness, curiosity, and acuity. Mindfulness also enables students to identify and work with habitual cognitive schemas and emotional reactions.
- Explore a phenomenological approach to connecting with and describing emotions
- Enter more directly into the visceral, powerful, and multi-layered experience of our emotional lives, as a practice for cultivating self-awareness and accountability for one’s subjective states
- Observe and track emotional experiences with openness and curiosity
- Using mindfulness, reflect upon and work with habitual schemas or patterns of emotional reaction
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This course imparts a meta- perspective on human development and on the evolution of human consciousness. Developmental models assist us in perceiving the growth potentials across the human lifespan, culminating in conscious leadership. The course introduces various models of human development, such as Erikson’s psychosocial development, Kohlberg and Gilligan’s moral development, Fowler’s faith development and Kegan’s adult development.
The course also explores basic elements of Ken Wilber’s integral theory, including the four quadrants, the difference between states and stages, and premodern, modern, and postmodern altitudes. Topics include models of consciousness, the relationship of Self/self, and the potential of integral psychology to deepen our understanding of and engagement with personal psycho-spiritual development as well as social/global change
- Explain some major developmental theories in the field of psychology
- Integrate traditional developmental theories with a Consciousness perspective
- Compare and apply Integral and Transpersonal models of consciousness development
- Understand and articulate how to work positively with the adult issues of development that arise in the second half of life
- Explain individuals’ movement through the stages of their life cycle
- Articulate cross-cultural similarities and differences in human development
Program Learning Outcomes
- Develop core coaching competencies to expand growth in consciousness and develop human potential
- Develop capacities to provide coaching sessions that to move clients forward in their lives
- Learn to offer and administer different assessment approaches that create an integral self-understanding for the client
- Design coaching practices and self-reflections tailored to the developmental stage of the individual
- Practice coaching mastery in service of consciousness growth
- Open new possibilities to take coaching into work and life
Additional Information
Dates and Locations
- When: Online Program
- Where: Program delivered virtually
Language
English
Program Delivery
Virtual Live Sessions, supplemented by online platform
Intended Participants
- Persons interested in personal growth and human development who wish to embark on a coaching career path
- Persons from any profession who wish to expand their professional credentials and leadership through in-depth engagement with individuals, teams, and organizations
- Veterans: As a Yellow Ribbon School, National University attracts Veterans who may be interested in a new career path as a coach. People with psychological and physical battle scars may be drawn to understand human development and facilitate growth and development in others
- Persons working in Human Resources and Management may be interested in furthering their knowledge base and skills in human development and becoming a coach
Program Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited college/university with a preferred minimum of 3.0 GPA in higher education coursework
- Transcripts of all prior higher education coursework
- Online application
- Personal autobiographical statement of 5-7 pages describing one’s formative life experiences and personal development, along with delineating their reasons for wanting to enroll in the Life Coaching certificate program
- Interview with faculty member
Policies on Tuition Payment and Fees
Tuition is due and payable prior to the first class-session of each course, and the cost is $700 per unit of coursework. Tuition not fully paid when due is subject to a late fee. If a tuition payment check is returned due to insufficient funds, the University reserves the right to drop all current and future classes for that student. Students will be notified of this action and assessed a return check charge. The University may require students who have written multiple insufficient-fund checks to make all future payments by cashier’s check, cash, or money order. The University reserves the right to modify tuition at any time. Students whose employers have entered into a contractual agreement with the University may be eligible for reduced tuition. General Fees are non-refundable. All records and services are withheld from students who have any outstanding financial obligations to the University or have defaulted on a Title IV loan at the University. Effective May 1, 2011, National University began reporting student account defaults to credit reporting agencies.
Policies on Withdrawals and Refunds
At National University, students may drop a course prior to midnight of the ninth day of the session. A grade will not be awarded, and tuition will not be charged. After midnight of the ninth day of the session, a grade may be entered, and tuition will be charged according to the refund policy.
Policies on General Fees
Fees are non-refundable. All records and services are withheld from students who have any outstanding financial obligations to the University or have defaulted on a Title IV loan at the University. Effective May 1, 2011, National University began reporting student account defaults to credit reporting agencies.
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To speak with our admissions team, call (855) 355-6288 or request information and an advisor will contact you shortly. If you’re ready to apply, simply start your application today.
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Program Disclosure
Successful completion and attainment of National University degrees do not lead to automatic or immediate licensure, employment, or certification in any state/country. The University cannot guarantee that any professional organization or business will accept a graduate’s application to sit for any certification, licensure, or related exam for the purpose of professional certification.
Program availability varies by state. Many disciplines, professions, and jobs require disclosure of an individual’s criminal history, and a variety of states require background checks to apply to, or be eligible for, certain certificates, registrations, and licenses. Existence of a criminal history may also subject an individual to denial of an initial application for a certificate, registration, or license and/or result in the revocation or suspension of an existing certificate, registration, or license. Requirements can vary by state, occupation, and/or licensing authority.
NU graduates will be subject to additional requirements on a program, certification/licensure, employment, and state-by-state basis that can include one or more of the following items: internships, practicum experience, additional coursework, exams, tests, drug testing, earning an additional degree, and/or other training/education requirements.
All prospective students are advised to review employment, certification, and/or licensure requirements in their state, and to contact the certification/licensing body of the state and/or country where they intend to obtain certification/licensure to verify that these courses/programs qualify in that state/country, prior to enrolling. Prospective students are also advised to regularly review the state’s/country’s policies and procedures relating to certification/licensure, as those policies are subject to change.
National University degrees do not guarantee employment or salary of any kind. Prospective students are strongly encouraged to review desired job positions to review degrees, education, and/or training required to apply for desired positions. Prospective students should monitor these positions as requirements, salary, and other relevant factors can change over time.
Prerequisite: CNS 5012
This course applies emotional intelligence, along with intuition, social knowledge, and cultural competence, to interpersonal contexts. Students practice techniques of effective listening and understand how emotional triggers can block interpersonal connection. The course also focuses on effective communication, the capacity to attune to another’s experience while remaining connected to one’s own.
Students explore how emotional triggers through relationship and provide an opportunity for the expansion of self-awareness and integration. Topics include the principles of nonviolent communication, conflict resolution, and the process of coming into conscious relationship.