How To Become A Personal Coach: What It Is and Career Path

What is a personal coach and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Personal coaches work one-on-one with clients to help them fulfill their potential. They can specialize in several different disciplines, from life coaching to career coaching to relationship coaching. Unlike athletic coaches, personal coaches don't make their clients run sprints, but they make their clients do the hard work of improving themselves. They listen to client's goals for improving their life and help them achieve those goals through guidance. A personal coach may advise their clients on the best way to face their fears during a transition, help them develop strategies to achieve what they want, or analyze behavioral patterns that may be keeping them down.

There is no one way to become a personal coach. Some personal coaches get bachelor's degrees in business or psychology, but others only have a high school diploma. Some get certified as personal coaches; others do not. There are just as many ways to become a personal coach as there are various types of coaching.

On average, personal coaches earn $43,080 a year. The demand for their services is growing by 11%. It seems that more and more people are in need of personal guidance to make progress.

ScorePersonal CoachUS Average

Salary

3.4

Avg. Salary $43,849

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

8.0

Growth rate 20%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.8

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.22%

Asian 5.43%

Black or African American 8.82%

Hispanic or Latino 13.15%

Unknown 5.78%

White 66.60%

Gender

female 52.71%

male 47.29%

Age - 34

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 34

Stress level

8.0

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.4

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

7.3

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a personal coach

Explore personal coach education requirements

Most common personal coach degrees

Bachelor's

69.6 %

Master's

15.2 %

Associate

8.4 %

Start to develop specific personal coach skills

Skills	Percentages
NCAA	29.08%
CPR	15.65%
Role Model	10.19%
III	8.60%
Practice Sessions	6.07%

Complete relevant personal coach training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New personal coaches learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a personal coach based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real personal coach resumes.

Research personal coach duties and responsibilities

Create and manage the team's Facebook page.
Perform additional responsibilities as deemed appropriate by school and district supervisors such as organizing and managing elementary school mathematics information nights.
Comply with NAIA rules and regulations.
Coordinate multiple team (varsity, junior varsity, freshman) practices.

Prepare your personal coach resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your personal coach resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a personal coach resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable personal coach resume templates

Build a professional personal coach resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your personal coach resume.

Apply for personal coach jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a personal coach job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do personal coaches rate their job?

-/5

5 stars

4 stars

3 stars

2 stars

1 star

Personal coach reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Apr 2019

Pros

Working with individual players in one on one lessons. That's when I get a real chance to find out what knowledge the athlete is bringing to practice, who taught him that, and how and why it may work or not be the best technique available. I am about as nuanced a coach as you could get. The game of football is one of mental fortitude, discipline, and preparation. Raw athleticism, circus catches and big hits or helmet to helmet collisions.

Cons

I don't like parents getting involved or attempting to persuade coaching decisions such as play playing time and depth chart seeding. What I would allow for is any of my concerned parents (at any potential public school) who wouldn't ordinarily come watch practice and see the way the coaching staff interacts with your student athlete as we will go through a proper tackling methods clinic for LB/defensive backs, different types of blocking for the offensive and even the multiple defensive pash rush techniques that are now able to be implemented by a modern football coach.