By Rachel Cline · September 26, 2026
Hiring a life coach can feel a little like dating. Someone can look great on paper, with a beautiful website, Instagram posts that make you feel like she somehow crawled inside your brain, a page full of testimonials and certifications, and a very convincing sales page. And then you actually start working together and realize this isn’t what you thought you were signing up for at all.
I know, because I’ve been there. Years ago I invested a significant amount of money in a high-ticket business coach, and I went into it so excited and hopeful. By the end I felt disappointed, frustrated, and a little embarrassed that I’d spent that much money on something that wasn’t anything like what I expected. It was bad enough that I questioned coaching altogether for a while.
Looking back, I can see what I couldn’t see then, which is that I didn’t know what questions to ask before I signed up. I didn’t really understand how this person coached, what I’d actually get, what it would look like once the sales process was over, or whether their way of working was even a good match for me. That experience changed the way I think about choosing a coach, and it changed the kind of coach I want to be.
So if you’re thinking about hiring a life coach to help you through a midlife transition, I want you to feel confident about your decision before you ever hand over your credit card. Here’s what I’d look at.
The short version
1. Get clear on what kind of help you need
“Life coach” is an enormous category. There are career coaches, health coaches, relationship coaches, executive coaches, spiritual coaches, somatic coaches, mindset coaches, grief coaches, divorce coaches, and coaches who specialize in just about every season of life you can imagine, so it helps to start with what’s bringing you to coaching in the first place.
Maybe your kids have left home and you’re realizing you don’t quite know who you are when you’re not needed in the same way. Maybe you’ve spent twenty years building a career you suddenly aren’t sure you want. Maybe a marriage or a long relationship has ended, or you’re coming up on 40, 50, or 60 and taking inventory of your life. Or maybe nothing dramatic has happened at all, and you just know the life you’ve been living doesn’t fit the way it used to.
If that sounds familiar, you’ll probably want someone who understands midlife as more than a goal-setting problem. (I wrote more about this in Signs You Need a Midlife Transition Coach.) Midlife can bring up questions about identity, meaning, purpose, relationships, work, aging, a body that’s changing, priorities that are shifting, and that uncomfortable moment when you realize some of the things you wanted for years aren’t what you want anymore. The coach who’s brilliant at helping someone get promoted may not be the person you want beside you while you’re asking yourself, “Who am I now?”
Ask yourself: What’s bringing me to coaching right now, and does this coach work with women going through something like it?
2. Find a coaching approach that fits how you work
There isn’t one right way to coach, and most coaches lean toward one or more of these styles.
Structured
You set a goal, create action steps, track your progress, and report back.
Mindset
Working mostly with your thought patterns and beliefs.
Reflective
Exploring your identity, your values, and what you want next.
Body-based
Bringing in the nervous system, breathwork, meditation, mindfulness, or spirituality.
So think about what kind of support you actually respond to. Do you want someone who’ll challenge you, or someone who’ll hand you practical tools, or someone who’ll give you enough space to hear yourself think? Do you want homework between sessions, accountability, voice support, meditation, journaling, somatic work? You don’t need the perfect answer, but it helps to have some sense of how a coach works before you commit.
My own approach tends to move in both directions. Sometimes we start from the bottom up, where we slow down, ground into the body, notice what’s happening in your nervous system, and make enough room to hear what’s underneath all the mental noise. Then we work from the top down with your beliefs, thought patterns, choices, and practical next steps. Depending on who I’m working with, I might also bring in meditation, yoga philosophy, breathwork, or energy work like Reiki, because after nearly 30 years of my own practice and 11 years of teaching, I’ve got a lot of tools, and I pull out the ones that fit you. Another coach may work completely differently, and that’s okay, because there are lots of good ways to coach and you’re looking for the one that helps you move.
Ask yourself: When I’ve made real changes in the past, what kind of support helped me get there?
3. Look at training AND lived experience
Training matters. If I’m trusting someone with the vulnerable parts of my life, I want to know she’s actually studied her craft. Look at a coach’s certifications, education, professional experience, and what she specializes in, and don’t be shy about asking where she trained and how long she’s been coaching. Professional organizations like the International Coaching Federation have set standards for education, experience, and ethics for credentialed coaches, so credentials can give you one useful piece of the picture.
But I don’t think certifications tell you everything, and for midlife work especially, lived experience matters too. Has this person ever had to rebuild some part of her own life? Has she changed careers, grieved a loss, questioned an identity she spent years building, started over, or made a big decision without knowing exactly where it would lead? She doesn’t need to have lived your exact story, and a good coach should never assume her experience is the same as yours. There’s still something powerful about walking this path with someone who’s been on the journey herself and knows what it feels like when an old version of your life doesn’t fit anymore.
I’ve been through my own career changes, grief, relationship changes, and identity shifts, including losing my mom in 2021 and walking away from my corporate career. And my years of teaching yoga have taught me something that’s hard to put on a certificate, which is how safe people need to feel before they can be honest. One comment from a student has stayed with me:
“You have such an incredible way of making your students feel safe, seen and cared for in your teaching.”
That means so much to me, because you can have the most impressive coach in the world sitting across from you, and if you don’t feel comfortable telling her what you’re really thinking, you’re only going to get so far.
4. Notice how you feel around the coach
This one is easy to underestimate. Pay attention to yourself during the discovery call or first conversation. Do you feel listened to? Can you finish a sentence? Is she curious about you, or does it feel like she’s waiting for an opening to explain her program? Do you feel comfortable asking questions, or do you feel like you need to impress her? Could you imagine telling this person something messy or embarrassing or uncertain without feeling judged?
You don’t have to feel like you’ve found your new best friend (your coach isn’t your best friend), but you do need enough trust to be real, because midlife coaching can bring up things you haven’t said out loud yet. Things like “I don’t think I want this career anymore,” or “I love my family, and I don’t know who I am outside of them,” or “I have everything I thought I wanted, so why am I still unhappy?” Those are big things to say to another person, and you want to be saying them to someone you trust.
Ask yourself: After the call, did I feel more like myself, or like I’d just sat through a sales pitch?
5. Ask these questions before you hire a life coach
This is the section I wish I’d had before one of my own expensive coaching decisions. You don’t need to interrogate anyone for an hour, so pick the questions that matter most to you.
What kinds of clients do you work with most often?
You want to know whether your situation falls somewhere inside the coach’s real experience.
Have you worked with women going through a transition like mine?
The answer doesn’t have to be yes. What matters is whether she can explain how she’d support you.
How would you describe your coaching style?
Listen for specifics. “Transformational” sounds lovely, but ask what it actually looks like when the two of you are on Zoom and you’re telling her about your week.
What happens during a typical session?
Some coaches have a clear structure and others respond more to whatever you bring that day, and neither one is automatically better.
How will I know I’m making progress?
Especially with identity work, progress isn’t always a tidy checklist, but your coach should still be able to tell you what change might look like.
What happens between sessions?
Are you completely on your own until next time, or can you send a message? Are there exercises, practices, or reflections to work with?
What do you expect from me as a client?
Coaching is a collaboration, and your coach should be able to tell you what your side of it looks like.
What happens if I realize we’re not a good fit?
Ask this one before you sign a long contract!
What’s included in the price?
Get clear on the number of sessions, messaging, resources, how long you have access, the cancellation policy, and anything else that’s part of the package.
Who isn’t a good fit for your coaching?
I love this question, because a thoughtful coach should know who she helps well and when another kind of support would serve you better.
6. Watch for these coaching red flags
One clunky sentence on someone’s website doesn’t mean you need to run for the hills, so look for patterns. Here’s what I’d be cautious about.
⚑ She pressures you to decide right now
You should be allowed to think about it. A coach might have enrollment periods or limited spots, and there’s a big difference between explaining a real deadline and making you feel like you’re sabotaging your future because you want to sleep on a $5,000 decision. I’ve been on the receiving end of that kind of pressure, and I don’t recommend it!
⚑ She makes promises no one can guarantee
Be careful with anyone promising you a specific income, relationship, body, timeline, or transformation that depends on things outside her control. A coach can tell you what she helps clients work toward, but she can’t promise you a particular life.
⚑ She acts like she has the answer to your life
A lot of the women who come to me in midlife have spent years listening to everyone else’s opinions about who they should be, and your coach shouldn’t turn into one more person telling you that. Good coaching helps you get better at hearing your own voice.
⚑ She talks a lot more than she listens
There’s a place for teaching and sharing experience, and I do both in my own coaching, but the session should still be about you. If you walk away knowing a lot more about your coach’s life than she knows about yours, pay attention to that.
⚑ She uses shame or fear to sell
Anyone who uses your uncertainty or your age against you, or hints that you’re running out of time, failing yourself, or “not committed” because you want to think it over, deserves a much closer look.
⚑ She can’t clearly explain what you’re buying
Ask exactly what the coaching includes. You shouldn’t need a decoder ring to understand an offer.
⚑ She works outside her scope
A life coach isn’t automatically qualified to diagnose or treat mental health conditions. An ethical coach knows when coaching is a good fit, when a therapist or another licensed professional would serve you better, and when the two can work alongside each other.
7. Read testimonials for more than the big results
Testimonials can tell you a lot if you know what you’re looking for. Of course it’s exciting to read that someone changed careers, started a business, left a hard relationship, or finally made the decision she’d been putting off for years. But look at how clients describe the experience too.
- ✓Did they feel heard and supported?
- ✓Did they get more confident making their own decisions?
- ✓Did they come away with tools they could keep using?
- ✓Did the work help them trust themselves more?
Those clues can tell you a lot more about what it feels like to work with someone than a dramatic before-and-after story.
8. Weigh the investment without letting price decide for you
Coaching prices are all over the map, and I learned the hard way that expensive doesn’t automatically mean excellent, and cheap doesn’t automatically mean inexperienced. Before you make a bigger investment, make sure you understand exactly what you’re getting and what you’re hoping to get out of it, and give yourself permission to ask all the questions you want. (I’ll write a whole post on the cost of coaching soon, because it deserves its own conversation.) For now, here’s the one question I’d ask yourself:
Do I understand what I’m investing in well enough to make this decision without being talked into it?
If the answer is no, go get more information before you decide.
How do you know when you’ve found the right life coach?
I don’t think there’s a magical moment when angels sing and a spotlight appears over someone’s Calendly link (wouldn’t that be nice?). It’s usually a lot more ordinary than that.
- ✓You understand what she does, and her approach makes sense to you.
- ✓Her experience feels relevant to what you’re going through.
- ✓You feel comfortable talking to her, and she listens.
- ✓She answers your questions directly.
- ✓You don’t feel pressured.
- ✓Something in you thinks, “I could do meaningful work with this person.”
That’s usually enough to go on.
Questions about hiring a life coach
Do I need a therapist or a life coach?
Sometimes this is the more important question. Therapy and coaching can overlap in the kinds of life situations people bring to them, but their scope is different. If you’re dealing with significant mental health symptoms, trauma that needs treatment, or severe anxiety or depression, or you’re struggling to get through your days, a licensed mental health professional may be the better place to start. Coaching tends to help most when you’re ready to look at questions like where you are now, what matters to you, what isn’t working anymore, who you’re becoming, and what one step toward what you want might look like. Plenty of women work with both a therapist and a coach.
Can’t I just figure this out on my own?
Maybe! And if you’re feeling like you should be able to, I totally get it. I’ve spent WAY longer trying to sort something out by myself than I needed to, because I didn’t want to ask for help or admit I was stuck. A lot of us analyze the situation to death, make the pros and cons list, ask our friends, and Google it from every possible angle, and all that information rarely moves the needle. Having someone who’s been there walking beside you usually means you get to your decision a lot sooner than you would on your own.
What if I spend the money and nothing changes?
That fear makes complete sense, and it’s the one I lived through. The best protection is everything in this post: know what you’re buying, ask the questions up front, notice how you feel around the coach, and start small if you can so you find out whether the fit is right before you commit to something bigger.
Is hiring a life coach worth it?
It can be. I’ve had coaching experiences that changed how I see myself and helped me move forward a lot faster than I would have on my own, and I’ve also paid a lot of money for coaching I deeply regretted, which is exactly why I want you to choose carefully. A coach can’t do the work for you or guarantee your outcome. The right one can give you a place to think honestly, help you ask better questions, point out patterns that are hard to see from inside your own life, and help you keep moving when you’d normally retreat into another round of thinking about it. Sometimes having the right person walking beside you changes everything.
You don’t have to commit to months of coaching to find out
If you’re somewhere in the middle of a life transition and you’re thinking, “I know something needs to change, but I don’t know what comes next,” you don’t have to figure out your whole future today. After my own expensive lesson, I wanted women to have a way to find out what working with me actually feels like before deciding on anything bigger, and that’s exactly why I created the Identity Reset.
It’s a 90-minute private Zoom session for women in a midlife transition, identity shift, or crossroads. We’ll look at where you are, what feels stuck, what you’re carrying that may not fit anymore, and what your next step might be, and we’ll work with your body as well as your mind, because sometimes you’ve already thought about the problem plenty. Afterward you get 7 days of voice and text support from me on Telegram, Monday through Friday, so you’re not dropped back into your life with a page full of notes and no idea what to do with them.
It’s $297, and if you decide before your 7 days of support are up that you want to keep going, you can apply it toward a longer coaching package. And if it turns out I’m not the right coach for you, I’ll tell you that too and point you toward support that fits you better, because what I care about most is you feeling more like yourself and more confident about where you’re headed next.
